30 
II. B. Shaw —Stray Aria ns in Tibet. 
[No. 1, 
Her name is Shiriny-mo .* * A certain family in the village supplies 
the hereditary officiating priest. This person has to purify himself for the 
annual ceremony by washings and fastings for the space of seven days, 
during which he sits apart, not even members of his own family being 
allowed to approach him, although they are compelled during the same period 
to abstain from onions, salt, chang (a sort of beer), and other unholy food. 
At the end of this period he goes up alone on to the rocky point 
before mentioned above the village, and after worshipping in the name of the 
community the deity who dwells there in a small cairn,f he renews the 
branches of the “ shukpa” ( Juniperus excelsa')\ which were placed there the 
previous year, the old branches being carefully stowed away under a rock 
and covered up with stones. 
It is said that this deity or spirit accompanied the ancestor of the 
priestly family from the original home of the Brokpas in Gilgit. Former¬ 
ly the priest used to be occasionally possessed by the demon and in this 
state to dance a devil-dance, giving forth inspired oracles at the same time, 
but these manifestations have ceased for the last twelve or fifteen years. 
The worship is now simply one of propitiation inspired by fear, the demon 
seeming to be regarded as an impersonation of the forces of nature adverse 
to man in this wild mountainous country. Sacrifices of goats (not sheep) 
are occasionally offered at all seasons below the rock, by the priest only, on 
behalf of pious donors. They talk of the existence of the demon as a mis¬ 
fortune attaching to their tribe, and do not regard her with any loyalty as 
a protecting or tutelary deity. In each house the fireplace consists of three 
upright stones of which the one at the back of the hearth is the largest, 
18 inches or 2 feet in height. On this stone they place an offering for the 
Lhamo from every dish cooked there, before they eat of it. They also 
place there the first-fruits of the harvest. Such is their household wor¬ 
ship. 
Besides this spirit-worship, which is their tribal religion, they have a 
superficial coating of Buddhism. They say that three or four cycles, that is 
the performance and consult the oracle. Perhaps this may he the remains of a form of 
local spirit worship which may have preceded Buddhism in these countries. I have 
already treated this subject elsewhere. 
* The affix mo is the Tibetan feminine affix, as bo is the masculine. 
f The Sidh-posh Kafirs (probably Dards) have also a custom of “going once a year 
to the top of a mountain as a religious exercise and putting a stone on a cairn” (Leit- 
ner’s Dardistan, Yol. I, Part 3, p. 42). 
t This is also a Tibetan custom with this difference, that each Tibetan householder 
has a similar sacred bundle of shukpa branches and horns of animals on the flat roof of 
his own house. But these customs are mere survivals (superstitions) among the 
Tibetans, while they form the religion of the Brokpas. 
