Oral literature in the Eastern Himalaya: Review of 'The sun rises: A shaman's chant, ritual exchange and fertility in the Apatani Valley', by Stuart Blackburn. Leiden/Boston: Brill: 2010; ISBN 9789004175785; 401 pages.

Abstract

Very little is known in any detail about the languages and cultures of the Eastern Himalaya. There is a simple reason for this: very few people are conducting anthropological or linguistic research there in any sort of sustained capacity. Little serious ethnography has been produced, while much of what has been produced has relied on secondhand accounts rather than on fieldwork. The linguistic situation is in some ways even more dire. While data of some kind is now available for the majority of Eastern Himalayan languages, most of the relevant works are limited in quality and scope. This paucity of description is pretty disheartening, considering the extraordinary research opportunities that currently exist in the Eastern Himalaya. What little detailed work has been carried-out is beginning to reveal a cultural-linguistic richness and complexity which seems considerably greater than has been assumed (Blench and Post in press; Post and Modi in press; Blench and Post MS-2011).