LAST MEMORIES: A MDO TIBETAN TRIBAL LIVES: RDOR JAG AND THANG TA

Compelling history in its careful treatment of the perplexing search for "manhood," social placement and meaning, and religious practice and belief - particularly lha pa 'spirit mediums' - gives great value to Klu thar rgyal's grandfather's and great-aunt's meticulous accounts of ordinary life among A mdo tribal herders in the 1929-1958 era. This extraordinary work, packed with tragedy, violence, and the most tender of moments, emphasizes the value of ethnographic work while challenging the mindless embracing of modern transformations. Sketches by the principal informant's grandson, photographs, maps, the author's nuanced interpretations, and provocative insights further enrich this valuable addition to the study of Tibetan nomad life recounted by those who lived it, provoking the question: "What should students of the past focus on?" -Rinchen Khar (Rin chen mkhar རིན་ཆེན་མཁར།) University of Massachusetts, Amherst

Extraordinary memories from ordinary Tibetans living a challenging nomad life south of Qinghai Lake in China provide important supplementary historical accounts missing from mainstream Tibetan and Chinese histories. Events described occurred as power shifted to the Communist Party in Qinghai from the Ma Bufang regime. Tibetologists, sociologists, anthropologists, historians, and novelists need to read this book. -Li Jianfu 李建富 (Libu Lakhi, Zla ba bstan 'dzin ཟླ་བ་བསྟན་འཛིན།) Qinghai Normal University青海师范大学

Last Memories gives us entrée into a historical period and region in A mdo rarely featured in written accounts through the life experiences/storytelling of two Mang ra elders. Klu thar rgyal renders his own people's tribal and ancestral history via local voices he trusts and who, in turn, entrust their stories to him. The author's curiosity about his community's past and the narrators' accounts provide a valuable resource for posterity. Last Memories fills one of many lacunae toward a clearer understanding of modern A mdo history and culture in general, and Mang ra people's livelihood in particular. -Choni Namgyal Tsepak (Co ne tshe dpag rnam rgyal ཅོ་ནེ་ཚེ་དཔག་རྣམ་རྒྱལ།) Cornell University 

Tibetan tribal lives are revealed in memory collections from two narrators in the context of the early twentieth century to 1958 in an A mdo "frontier" area, where government control, including the brutal Ma Family regime, failed to bring law or order. Bandit raids, blood revenge, kinship obligations, and exodus characterize the precarious life of this pastoral, tribal existence. Love, weddings, relationships, marmot hunting, foodways, measures of wealth, illness, and shamanistic rituals detail this presentation of tribal lives. Photographs, maps, and footnotes validate these local accounts compiled and presented by the local author familiar with his home community. Often beyond conventional imagination, Final Memories challenges historians to prioritize often impassioned local accounts that offer insight into the past that exist nowhere else. -Gengqiu Gelai (Konchok Gelek, Dkon mchog dge legs དཀོན་མཆོག་དགེ་ལེགས།) University of Zurich 

Klu thar rgyal's powerful presentation of non-fiction life narratives of two elders seizes the reader's attention, vividly illustrating the great transformations occurring in Eastern Tibet in the 1929-1958 period, a time often overlooked in contemporary studies. -Duo Dala (Stobs stag lha སྟོབས་སྟག་ལྷ།) International Institute of Social Studies, Erasmus University Rotterdam

Last Memories presents vivid memoirs of A mdo Tibetan tribal men and women living in the 1930s and into the twenty-first century, chronicling a tumultuous period of social unrest. Richly detailed ethnographic accounts include bandit raids, livestock stealing and revenge, territorial battles, the death of loved ones, and negotiations and compensation stemming from livestock theft and resultant killings. Women's lives include arranged marriage, childbirth, illness, death, and struggles for free love. These life accounts also feature esoteric beliefs and practices such as sher rituals to determine guilt or innocence, mountain deity worship, spirit mediums, catching evil spirits in a leather bag to cure ailments, heavy taxation by the Ma warlord government, conflict with Ma officials, and flight to a neighboring province to avoid taxes and return home; and communal life and class struggles in the 1950s. This valuable oral history of A mdo is essential reading. -Kelsang Norbu (Gesang Nuobu, Skal bzang nor bu) སྐལ་བཟང་ནོར་བུ།

Few communities on earth have experienced the abrupt, extreme changes Tibetan communities faced in the twentieth century. Thus, the narratives in this extraordinary work on lived experiences of ordinary, individual historical actors are invaluable. Enriching the literature of contemporary Tibetan history, this is a must-read.  -Tshe dpal rdo rje ཚེ་དཔལ་རྡོ་རྗེ། University of Canterbury

Colorful prayer flags, mountain ranges where countless sheep and yaks graze, valleys and riverbanks, smoke wafting to the sky from small clusters of black yak-hair tents scattered on the grassland… such quiet, idyllic scenes suggest Tibetan herders on the Plateau grasslands living in legendary Shambala. Eating, herding, shearing sheep, milking, collecting yaks, repairing tents, searching for lovers, treating illness with spirit mediums possessed by mountain deities, weddings, death, and so on reveal a world that is also one of hatred, revenge, cursing practices, bandit raids, lethal gunshots, and banditry among the tribes in the pre-1958 period. Klu thar rgyal's grandfather and great-aunt recount their A mdo Tibetan lives between 1929-1958 in today's Mang ra (Guinan) County, Mtsho lho (Hainan) Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Mtsho sngon (Qinghai) Province. Names of yaks, sheep, and horses are also provided. This impressive work offers valuable insight into traditional Tibetan herding culture. -Limusishiden, Qinghai University Affiliated Hospital

Last Memories' first-hand stories of the pre-1958 period, narrated by the author's close relatives and skilfully woven together, reflect A mdo Tibetan community existence in regions ruled by feudal and tribal authorities. Tribal norms and customs emerge, presenting a holistic portrayal of life familiar to the ordinary Tibetans who lived it and described it from personal experience. In the second decade of the 21^st Century, unprecedented social changes have delegated that world to fading memories. Essential reading for historians, anthropologists, and Tibetan Studies specialists. -Dpal ldan bkra shis དཔལ་ལྡན་བཀྲ་ཤིས། Humboldt University zu Berlin

Theft, killing, and revenge were embedded in the lives and culture of Tibetan bandits, not because of poverty but to prove masculinity to "bolster their reputation, prove their bravery, receive more recognition from their home community." Certain bandits "snatched lambs while they were on horseback and put them into their robe pouch." Some Tibetan nomads "burned the surface of the wool off all their lambs while they were alive, to prevent bandits from stealing, killing, and skinning" them. Forced marriage at a young age was common and married women "returned to their natal home only once a year because of the distance and fear of encountering bandits." 

Tibetan nomads traveled widely on the back of yaks and horses with their livestock. Little children "were put inside milk churns" on long journeys. New encounters, retelling stories, and bandit attacks were common in A mdo areas where Tibetan elders never ran short of stories to tell. Such narratives are seldom heard today and are on the verge of permanently fading away. 

Last Memories gives significant insights into Tibetan nomads' lives during dangerous times. It details arranged marriage, divination, deities, clothing, ornaments, the Tibetan New Year, marmots and pikas, animal naming, livestock tax collection, kidnapping, local justice, rulers, conflicts, revenge, and disease. This invaluable contribution records endangered oral histories of significant times, places, and people that would otherwise go unheard. -Nyangchakja (Snying lcags rgyal སྙིང་ལྕགས་རྒྱལ།)