edited, translated and annotated GREGORY G. MASKARINEC.

1998. Pages, xii, N 391 + 695. 8ø. Price, $ 95
 

Nepalese Shaman Oral Texts is a bilingual (Nepali and English) critical edition of three complete, representative repertoires of shaman texts collected over the past twenty years in Jajarkot District, Western Nepal.  The volume, the first of its kind, includes both publicly chanted recitals and privately whispered spells of the area's three leading shamans, annotated with extensive notes.  It endeavors to provide a comprehensive documentation of a non-Western healing system through the material sustaining and preserving that tradition, demonstrating that shaman texts remain thoroughly meaningful.

Shamans fulfill important therapeutic roles in Western Nepal, where they diagnose problems, treat afflictions, and restore order and balance to the lives of their clients and their communities.  Each of these efforts incorporates extensive oral texts, materials that not only clarify symptoms and causes but also detail the proper ways to conduct rituals.  These texts preserve the knowledge necessary to act as a shaman, and confirm a social world that demands continued intervention by shamans.