What if Khata Could Talk?

Abstract

Tibetan pastoralists often say that many know how to graze animals (ཟོག་ལུག་འཚོ་བ), but few know how to nurture them (ཟོག་ལུག་སྐྱོང་བ). Skyong (སྐྱོང) means nurturing or attending to something or someone with tenderness. While conducting fieldwork research among Tibetan pastoralists in eastern Tibet, I learned that animals were dying from eating discarded plastic khata (ceremonial scarves) and prayer flags. Even those who nurture animals through winter, when grass was scarce and snowstorms were constant, were not sure what to do to prevent this. This ethnographic experience inspired me to make a documentary film and to experiment with flash ethnography on this topic of the sacred status of khata in relation to its poisonous contemporary materiality. This flash ethnography takes creative license, allowing khata to speak.