An Anthropology of Animism and Shamanism

The Ladakhi is a Tibetan speaking people living in the northwestern part of India. (1) Ladakh is a region located in the Trans-Himalayan Range between the Great Himalayan Mountain Range in the south and the Karakoram Mountain Range in the north, and villages are located in the valleys along the rivers, varying in altitude from 3000m to 4000m above sea level. Ladakh, Zanskar, and Baltistan (now belonging to Pakistan) are commonly referred to as Western Tibet, since the peoples in these areas are Tibetan people who had migrated to settle in these areas long before Christ (Francke, 1977[1907]: 60; Jettmar, 1980: 27). The Ladakhi, who subsist by cultivating wheat and barley and raising yak and cattle, are pious Tibetan Buddhists. The Ladakhi language, their mother tongue, is a dialect of Tibetan, which retains archaic words.