myths
Tendong Lho Rum Faat Celebrated in Sikkim
On August 4, the Sikkim Lepcha Association issued a statement which indicated that the ancient festival of Tendong Lho Rum Faat will not be celebrated this year with its normal festivities due to the recent upsurge in the COVID 19 pandemic. Instead of the usual activities in Lepcha communities around the state, the organizers asked […]
Slight Progress on the Stairway to Heaven
The Lepchas are still as committed as they’ve ever been to the completion of their Stairway to Heaven reconstruction project in Daramdin, West Sikkim, and its neighboring Lepcha Heritage Center. According to a news story last week, they have been protesting once again the delays in the project—due to corruption they charge. The Stairway to […]
Piaroa Petroglyphs
Since the Piaroa believed that the sun plus Wahari, one of their mythic figures, were born at the Atures Rapids of the Orinoco River, it isn’t surprising that their ancestors carved large petroglyphs there. A news report last week described the setting and the scientific work by archaeologists to photograph and describe the huge engravings, […]
Lepcha Festival Preserves Cultural Heritage
On Tuesday last week, Lepchas celebrated an important festival in numerous villages of Sikkim with dancing, singing by masked performers, and displaying models of their sacred mountain, Tendong. The Northeast Today published an article on Wednesday about the annual festival, called Tendong Lho Rum Faat, as did a number of other websites. In Daramdin, a […]
Rats: A Feast for the Gods
A news story last week about the rat-catching proclivities of the Yanadi prompts the reader to wonder just why they persist in their periodic pursuit of these destructive animals. According to older news reports, they are well paid by neighboring farmers for destroying rats, and they no longer rely on hunting them as a major […]
An Erection Points toward Peace on Ifaluk
A Peace Corps volunteer, who only identifies herself as “Dr. Rosemary,” has just visited Ifaluk Island, an experience that she briefly describes in a blog entry posted on June 2, 2015. She includes many pictures with her blog posts about her year in the Yap State of Micronesia, which began in August 2014. Her visit […]
The Inuit Sea Woman and Uncertainty (journal article review)
Jean Briggs (1994) argued that when the Inuit teach their children to be cautious and uncertain about the intentions of others, it instills insecurity in them and, at the same time, it reinforces their peacefulness. An essential aspect of their worldview is that uncertainty about the feelings of others makes one constantly strive to deserve […]
Project in Sikkim Will Honor Lepcha Culture
Many music critics claim that Led Zeppelin’s 1971 “Stairway to Heaven” was one of the greatest rock songs of all time. The lyrics, written by the band’s vocalist, Roger Plant, were apparently inspired by his readings in Lewis Spence’s Magic Arts in Celtic Britain and not by the Lepcha myth with the same title. A […]
Inuit Myth Fosters Purity [book chapter review]
Sedna, a good looking young woman, lived quietly with her father on the shore of the northern ocean, but the local youths who tried to win her heart could not penetrate her pride. One spring, fulmar, a pelagic bird, courted her. He described the wonderful land where he lived and convinced her that she should […]
Can an Erect Penis Point Toward Peace?
Thousands of people will converge on Washington this weekend to mark the fourth anniversary of the American invasion of Iraq. Most will question why the United States, among other countries, launches wars so often. Some of the demonstrators may do more than protest. They may also discuss the value of peacemaking and decide to investigate […]
