In ordinary
illnesses, if butter taken internally as well as rubbed into the skin
does not cure the patient, the lamas are summoned to the rescue.
They make a mitsap, a half life-size figure of the sick person, dress
it in his or her clothes and ornaments, and place it in the
courtyard, where they sit round it, reading passages from the sacred
classics fitted for the occasion. After a time, all rise except the
superior lama, who continues reading, and taking small drums in their
left hands, they recite incantations, and dance wildly round the
mitsap, believing, or at least leading the people to believe, that by
this ceremony the malady, supposed to be the work of a demon, will be
transferred to the image. Afterwards the clothes and ornaments are
presented to them, and the figure is carried in procession out of the
yard and village and is burned. If the patient becomes worse, the
friends are apt to resort to the medical skill of the missionaries.
If he dies they are blamed, and if he recovers the lamas take the
credit.
At some little distance outside Leh are the cremation grounds--desert
places, destitute of any other vegetation than the Caprifolia
horrida.
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