Sacred Cave at Tsosher

At Tsosher village, in the extreme northeastern corner of Mustang, the prehistoric man made caves are still used for human habitations but also, as elsewhere in Mustang, for sacred purposes. A Buddhist shrine of unfired mud bricks and a lhato (god marker) occupy this cave. Nearby, a wad of prayer flags compose as a ghostly, white-leaved bush. The colors derive from local clays, samples of which Powell collected to ensure authenticity in his paintings. Certain colors symbolize specific deities of the Buddhist pantheon, others the teeming malevolent spirits which, as holdovers of the shamanist-animist past, still terrorize the inhabitants of this inhospitable land.