A Study of Domestic Rituals
Discover the winning 2026 project "A Study of Domestic Rituals: The Klu (Water Spirits) in Central Tibet" from the Louis Dumont Fund, which supports research in social anthropology.
In the Tibetan world, natural spirits known as klu inhabit subterranean and aquatic environments, govern natural resources, and are closely associated with both human prosperity and affliction. Whether in everyday practices or in classical religious corpora, klu occupy an important place; however, previous research has primarily focused on textual exegesis and collective rituals, overlooking domestic practices that are nonetheless equally widespread.
Drawing on ongoing fieldwork in Central Tibet, this research has a twofold objective: to document these domestic practices, which are under threat from urbanisation and collective resettlement policies; and, by incorporating the specific features of these rituals into the analysis, to propose a new anthropological interpretation of the figure of the klu. By combining ethnographic fieldwork with textual analysis, this study seeks to move beyond a cultural materialist approach in order to better understand the cosmological significance of the klu and, more broadly, the system of Tibetan natural deities.
Leyou Li
After obtaining a bachelor’s degree in Tibetan studies at the Institut National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales (Inalco), Leyou LI is currently pursuing a master’s degree in Asian Studies at the École Pratique des Hautes Études (EPHE). His research thesis focuses on the cult of a category of nature spirits known as klu in the Tibetan world, with particular attention to the domestic rituals associated with them. Since 2022, he has undertaken annual study stays and fieldwork in Tibetan regions, seeking to combine philological and anthropological approaches in order to explore the system of invisible forces and Tibetan cosmology.
