Kritik am Buch „The Shadow Of The Dalai Lama ... - Neues von Shi De

een — the myth of the nailing down of Srinmo teaches us — overthrown by the sun warriors.
According to Hummel the lunar and solar cultural currents are graphically demonstrated in the very
popular garuda motif in Tibetan art. The garuda is a mythical sun-bird. Not infrequently it holds in its
beak a snake, which must be assigned to the lunar, matriarchal world. There was thus a fundamental
clash between the two cultures: “Since the garuda is thereby understood as an enemy of the snakes, it
seems natural to suspect that there where the snake-killing garuda arose, the lunar and solar cultures
encountered and opposed one another as enemies” Hummel writes (Hummel, 1954, p. 101).
There are in fact numerous historically demonstrable matriarchal elements in the old Tibetan culture.
In this connection there are the still unexplained and mysterious stone circles which have been
brought into connection with matriarchal cults and were already discovered by Sven Hedin on his
research trips. In contrast, numerous prehistoric shrines found in caves offer us less ambiguous
information. It has been clearly proven that female deities were worshipped at these chthonic sites. In
this century such caves were still considered as birth channels and a visit to them was seen as an
initiation and hence as a rebirth (Stein, 1988, pp. 2-4).
A further secret concerns the mythic female kingdoms which are supposed to have existed in Tibet —
one in the West, another in the East, and the third in the North of the Land of Snows. The in part
detailed reports about these stem from Chinese sources and may be traced back to the seventh century
C.E. We learn that these realms, depicted as being very powerful, were ruled by queens who had
command over a tribal council of women (Chayet, 1993, p. 51). When they died several members of
court voluntarily joined the female rulers in death. The female nobles had male servants, and women
were the head of the family. A child inherited its mother’s name.
On one of his first expeditions to Tibet, Ernst Schäfer encountered a matriarchal tribe who
distinguished themselves through their cruelty. In his book, Unter Räubern in Tibet [Among Robbers
in Tibet], he reports: “As we learn in Dju-Gompa, primitive matriarchy is still practiced by the wild
Ngoloks. A great queen, Adjung de Jogo by name, reigns autocratically over the six main tribes that
are governed by princes. As the reincarnation of a heavenly being she enjoys divine honors and at the
same time is the spouse of all her tribal princes on earth. She rules with a strong hand, is pretty and
clever, possesses a bodyguard of seven thousand warriors, and handles a gun like a man. Once a year
Adjung de Jogo proceeds up the God-mountain with her seven thousand men in a grand procession in
order to meditate in the glacial isolation before she returns to the black tents of her mobile residence.
It is not just about the intrepid courage of the Ngoloks but also their cruelty that people tell the most
terrible stories. Of all the Tibetan tribes they are supposed to have figured out the most ingenious
ways of despatching their victims off to join their ancestors. Chopping off hands and splitting skulls
are minor things; they can be left to the others! But sewing [people] up in fresh yak skins and letting
them roast in the sun — disemboweling while alive, or launching the entrails skywards on bent rods,
these are the methods that are loved in Ngolokland.
At nearly all times of the year, but especially in early fall when the marshes are dried out and the
animals are best nourished, the Ngoloks undertake their large-scale plundering raids to as far as
Barum-Tsaidam in the north, Sungpan in the south, and Dju-Gompa in the West. Even for Chinese
merchants they are the epitome of all the terrible things that are said of the “Western barbarian
country” in the Middle Kingdom. (Schäfer, 1952, pp. 164-165)