Inside his prayer room, Tseten puts on a maroon conical hat with stiff wings around its base. The hat is something he wears only for this ritual. In front of him on a tray is a bundle of pointed wooden batons, some short rods, half a dozen clay tshatshas which look like miniature stupas, two white conches decorated with stars, and a rosary, all pressed into a heap of barley on the tray. Tseten explains that these items have been much prayed over. The batons stand for male gods, the rods for female gods, the tshatshas for the Buddhist message, and the conches for the instrument through which the message is delivered. These, and a robe like the one a monk wears, are his complete equipment for taking on the mighty gods up in the sky.
Tseten says he used to begin his anti-hailstone ritual a full three months before the harvest, shutting himself away to meditate. In June, when the crop was just five inches tall, he would place sticks and rods around the fields — these represented his control over the fields. Then he would conduct a ritual for the whole village, during which he would enter into a trance, invoking Yul Lha and other gods, and asking them not to harm the village. For the rest of the summer, whenever the clouds looked threatening, he would be up twenty-four hours a day, praying and preparing for action. His vigil would last until all of the crops were brought in.
