Documentation of oral traditions in Spiti and upper Kinnaur

The cultural landscape of Spiti and upper Kinnaur in modern Himachal Pradesh, India, has been shaped during the last thousand years by the influence of Buddhism and Tibetan cultural traditions, both as a result of the establishment of the western Tibetan kingdom at the end of the 10th century AD. Despite this, the culture of the area contains many elements to this day deriving from non-Buddhist (including pre-Buddhist), mainly local traditions which have been adopted and integrated by Buddhism. Similarly, preliminary linguistic analysis has shown that the Tibetan dialect(s) spoken in the area have preserved traces of (non-Tibetan) dialects. These are also to be found in 10th-century inscriptions in Tabo monastery. In recent years, due to influences from outside (TV, radio), the local song and narrative traditions as well as the local language have been exposed to massive forces of cultural change which may lead to their disappearance soon. Therefore, the phonographic documentation of these traditions (songs, narratives, dances; in the context of festivals, pilgrimages, marriages, rituals) is the main aim of this project. This will be done through professional recordings with appropriate equipment (provided by the Phonogrammarchiv of the Austrian Academy of Sciences), in co-operation with local institutions and rep-resentatives and supported by members of other research projects (FWF "Forschungsschwerpunkt" (FSP) The Cultural History of the western Himalayas from the 10th to the 14th century, FWF project Tradition and Modernity in Tibet and the Himalayas: Reconstruction and Adaptation by Local Communities within Multi-ethnic States). The recorded material will be archived in the Phonogrammarchiv, transcribed, translated and analysed together with the findings of the accompanying linguistic research. Analysis will also include textual material (song texts, manuscripts) collected in the area by former researchers (partly published e.g. in Tucci 1966, Francke 1914 and 1923). The present project will focus on the phonographic documentation and provide the basis for the inclusion of ethnomusicological and video documentation in an intended follow-up project.

The project`s overall goal was the documentation of oral traditions in Spiti and Upper Kinnaur (Himachal Pradesh, India) in the Western Himalayas. The aim was the systematic collection of oral traditions in order to complement other sources (iconographic, written, architectural, etc.) for the cultural history of the Western Himalayas, the latter being studied by the FWF "Forschungsschwerpunkt" (FSP) The Cultural History of the Western Himalayas from the 10th to the 14th century. The project therefore focused on documenting songs, narratives, dances, pilgrimages, marriages, or other rituals and celebrations. The field recording activities produced 334 hours of recordings (audio: 287 hours, video: 47 hours). The recorded material comprises songs, narratives, speeches, interviews, and documentation of festivals, celebrations, and other events, and is deposited and archived in the Phonogrammarchiv of the Austrian Academy of Sciences. Much of the song and narrative or interview material could already be transcribed and translated. Thanks to the wealth of data, a preliminary classification of songs in Tibetan could be worked out. The recorded languages include Spiti-Tibetan, Kinnauri, Shumcho, Kinnauri-Harijan, and Jangshung. All transcriptions, translations and analyses of texts were made with the help of and in collaboration with local informants. The evaluation procedures were accompanied by linguistic studies. The project thus succeeded in assembling a comprehensive and unique corpus of recorded data pertaining to oral traditions and local culture of Spiti and Upper Kinnaur. The gathered data offer first-hand sources that are not available otherwise. Furthermore, the project could confirm the existence of 3 hitherto unstudied local languages, providing what perhaps is the first phonographic evidence of these languages. A proposal for a new project to research these languages systematically was submitted to the FWF.