TITLE: Ishi Gempo Mask
TYPE: face mask
GENERAL REGION: Asia
COUNTRY: Bhutan
SUBREGION: N/A
ETHNICITY: Ngalop
DESCRIPTION: Ishi Gempo (Genpo) Mask
CATALOG ID: ASBT005
MAKER: Carver: Bumpa Dorji (Tashiyang, 1991- ); Painter: Tashi Phuntsho (Lhuentse, 1990- )
CEREMONY: Cham Dance
FUNCTION: Celebration; Entertainment; Protection/Purification
AGE: 2025
MAIN MATERIAL: blue pine wood
OTHER MATERIALS: mineral paint; lacquer; cotton cloth; wool cloth; wool batting; thread
The Ngalop people inhabit western and central Bhutan and are originally of Tibetan origin. The ethnic group includes an estimated 710,000 persons. The Ngalop are primarily Tibetan Buddhist, and their masks are typically worn at monastery celebrations known as Cham Dances to bless the sowing of the grain, pray for a bountiful harvest, and entertain the public.
The Bardo Cham is a sacred masked dance performed in Bhutanese Buddhist festivals known as tshechus. Rooted in Vajrayana Buddhist teachings concerning the bardo—the intermediate state between death and rebirth—the dance dramatizes the soul’s encounter with peaceful and wrathful deities after death. Its purpose is simultaneously didactic, protective, and soteriological: it teaches Buddhist cosmology, warns against attachment and ignorance, and symbolically aids liberation from cyclic existence.
During the performance, elaborately costumed dancers portray terrifying deities, skeleton figures, judgment scenes, and beings representing karmic consequences. The main story relates to a hunter (nyelbum) who is being judged for the Buddhist sin of killing animals. There are comedic elements, such as when the wise clowns, the atsaras, try to kidnap the monkey god (treu) or when the hunter flees, only to be captured by the boar god (phagpa). Unlike purely entertainment-oriented masked dances, the Bardo Cham is considered a ritual enactment with spiritual efficacy. Watching it attentively is believed to generate merit and familiarize spectators with the visions said to arise after death, potentially helping them recognize illusions in the bardo state and move toward enlightenment or a more favorable rebirth.
Ishi Gempo (or Genpo) is an important figure in the Bardo cham dance, because he judges the soul before deciding its fate.
For more on the masked festivals of Bhutan, see Kezang Namgay, Sacred Dances of Bhutan (self-pub., 2d ed., 2017), and, with regard specifically to the traditions of Bumthang, Yonten Dargye, Festivals of Bumthang Dzongkhag (Thimpu: Research & Media Division, Naitonal Library & Archives of Bhutan/Tshangpa Press, 2018).
