Shamanic Healing Rituals among the Hyolmo people of Nepal

Notions of health and illness in the Himalayas rest on a particular theory about the body. Among several indigenous (adivasi) groups, illness is conceived as a foreign intrusion into the body or, on the contrary, it is thought to be caused by the temporary exit of life energies from it. The body is imagined as a space that could be opened and closed, emptied or filled, travelled through and even inhabited by multiple other-than-human entities. Among the Hyolmo people of Nepal, besides Buddhist lamas, we find a particular class of religious specialists called bombos, whose bodies epitomize these conditions and appear to be the ones in charge of the healing processes, being well-versed and trained in a specific set of ritual techniques employed to expel negative agents from the bodies of their patients or to call back lost life-energies or souls.

Davide Torri is Associate Professor at the Department of History Anthropology Religions Art History, Media and Performing Arts (Sapienza University of Rome), where he teaches Himalayan Religions, Trans-Himalayan History, and Anthropology, and Religions and Philosophies of India and Central Asia. He is currently President of the International Society for the Academic Research on Shamanism (ISARS). His most recent publications include the monograph Landscape, Ritual and Identity among the Hyolmo of Nepal (2020) and the edited volumes The Shamaness in Asia. Gender, Religion and the State (2020, co-edited with S. Roche), and Dealing with Disasters. Perspectives from Eco-Cosmologies (2021, co-edited with D. Riboli,P. Stewart, A. Strathern).