MIASU Research Seminar: Emily Yeh

Emily Yeh (University of Colorado)

Contemporary Tibetan practices of shaping the weather and restoring springs

Practices to stop hail, invite rain, and restore springs have a long history on the Tibetan Plateau, but little has been written about them in contemporary Tibet, due both to the declining prevalence of ritual practices as well as restrictions on transmission of specific knowledge to tantric initiates.  Based on interviews conducted in Amdo about weather practices, and interviews and social media posts about various efforts to restore dried springs, this preliminary and informal talk will report on the quite varied ways in which practitioners describe the logics of these practices. I will place this discussion in the context of state sponsored weather modification and environmental protection efforts and argue that these practices are ones in which weather and water are understood as relation rather than resource.