Religious Festivals, Between Public and Private
Based upon the analysis of first-hand ethnographic data and second-hand documentation, this papers questions the relationships between international tourism and the alleged « related » social and cultural mutations. Facing a massive exposition to tourism, the Sherpa, the inhabitants of Northern Nepal from Tibetan extraction, « play » their cultural identity on the scene of their own traditions in the mirror of Western imagination. But to what extent does this mimesis account for the faces the Sherpa display to their audiences ? The comparison between two religious festivals, one Buddhist, the other one Shamanic, calls for an examination of the variations of the visibility of cultural life in a « traditional » society located at the very heart of globalization of images and people. Introducing the issues of performance, strategies and politics of such rituals, this paper highlights the complexity of religious and social change in the Himalayan world : while global tourism plays a crucial role, in fact, local social and historical forces simultaneously partake on these transformations.