Paper short abstract:

The paper discusses material and immaterial transactions in the ethnographic context of the Minyag community in western China. It elaborates on the consequences that legitimate and illegitimate actions undertaken in specific sites of the environment entail for the individual and the community.

Paper long abstract:

A community of ten-thousand, Minyag clusters in small villages around Gongga Mountain in western Sichuan (PRC). During my fieldwork in Mengzhong village I was recommended not to venture into the northern outskirts, where the village is delimited by a visible thick grove and a less noticeable Chinese-style Han tomb. The lurking presence of ghosts, especially after dusk, keeps the villagers away from both sites. However, fear of unpleasant encounters is overcome on the occasion of bringing offerings to ancestors' altars located on the hill, deep into the sacred core of the grove.

While villagers need to trespass on the grove and perform the sacrifice of a sheep or a chicken in order to ensure the prosperity of the household, the Han tomb remains a sinister space to be avoided. Nevertheless, the accidental excavation of supposedly old clay jars nearby the tomb nurtured the hopes of one villager to make profit out of it in the black market. After knowing that he had removed and hidden the jars in his attic, other villagers kept distance from his house, fearing for the "polluting" effect generated by the dislocation of these items.

The paper juxtaposes personal experiences and shared taboos related to material and immaterial transactions happening in the grove and nearby the tomb. It further elaborates on the consequences that legitimate and illegitimate actions undertaken in the environment entail for the individual and the community.