Ritual Moments: Death Rites and Trance

These short film clips show a few examples of Gurung ritual. The first four films take you through the death ritual cycle, while the fifth film shows a shaman possessed by deities at a village festival. The last film shows the gato ritual, which is unique to the Gurung, in which young girls go into trance. All of these films are copyrighted by Alan Macfarlane. These films are small samples of the hundreds of hours of existing footage currently being digitised and catalogued.

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Lamas at death ritual. Thak, Kaski, Nepal, 1995	Laymen play drums at death ritual.Thak, Kaski, Nepal, 1995	Shamans play drums at death ritual.Thak, Kaski, Nepal, 1995	Butter lamps at death ritual.Thak, Kaski, Nepal, 1995
	Offerings and possession at an annual village ritual. Thak, Kaski, Nepal 1995	Two young girls go into trance as part of the gato ritual.Yangjakot, Lamjung, Nepal 1990 view same ritual in 1957