Wasanglung: Where the Limbu Yeba Shamans Were Born

Limbu Mundhum · Living Heritage

Wasanglung
The Sacred Origin of the Yeba

“Our Mundhum, our history. Let us guard our pride forever — let us protect it, let us nurture it.”

Taplejung, NepalYakthung Limbu

High in the eastern hills of Nepal, where the land folds upward toward the snow, there is a place the Limbu people speak of with quiet reverence. It is called Wasanglung — and according to Limbu Mundhum tradition, it is where the Yeba, the community’s healer-priests, first came into being and first received their spiritual power. This is not a story written in a single book. It lives in chant, in memory, and in the night-long rituals still performed in Limbu homes today.

This article walks through what Wasanglung means, who the Yeba and Yema are, and why their work still matters — offered in the spirit of preservation, so that a tradition carried for generations by voice alone is not quietly forgotten.

At a Glance

Place

Wasanglung, above Phakumba

Setting

Foot of Jaljale Himal, Maiwa Khola

District

Taplejung, Koshi Province

People

Yakthung (Limbu)

Tradition

Kirat Mundhum

The PlaceWhere is Wasanglung?

Wasanglung sits above the village of Phakumba, on the slopes overlooking the Maiwa Khola river, resting at the foot of the Jaljale Himal in Taplejung district. Phakumba is a real settlement in present-day Maiwakhola Rural Municipality, in the far eastern corner of Nepal’s Koshi Province — a region of cardamom terraces, river valleys and ridges that climb toward Kanchenjunga.

The Jaljale range is part of the celebrated Tinjure–Milke–Jaljale landscape, one of the richest rhododendron belts in the world. For the Yakthung Limbu, though, this is more than scenery. In the Mundhum worldview, stones, soil, water, trees and mountains are alive with spirit, and certain places hold particular sacred weight. Wasanglung is one of them.

The MythWasanglung in the Mundhum

In the Limbu oral tradition, Wasanglung is remembered as a site of deep mythic importance — understood as the birthplace of the priestly lineage and the ground where the shamans first attained muk, their spiritual power and authority. To become a Yeba or a Phedangma is not something a person can simply study and achieve; in Limbu belief these practitioners are chosen and “called,” carrying an additional divine soul recognised by the supreme goddess Tagera Ningwaphuma. A place tied to the very origin of that calling naturally becomes sacred.

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In Limbu thought, the priest does not invent the ritual. He inherits it — and the land remembers where it began.

The PeopleWho are the Yeba and Yema?

The Limbu — who call themselves Yakthung — have an oral scripture known as the Mundhum. It holds their accounts of the creation of the universe, the earth, plants, animals and the first human beings, along with their moral and social code. The Mundhum is not read so much as performed, sung and enacted by ritual specialists.

Several kinds of priest carry this tradition: the Phedangma, the Samba, the Yeba and Yema, the Yuma Sam and the Ongsi. Each has a defined role. The Yeba (male) and the Yema (female) are known together simply as Ye. They are the community’s healers and exorcists — the ones called when sickness, misfortune or restless spirits enter a household.

What the Yeba and Yema do

• Healing illness born of envy and jealousy. In Limbu belief, certain ailments are thought to arise from the spirit of ill-will and jealousy directed at a person. The Ye perform rituals to cure exactly this kind of affliction.
• Calming and driving out the spirits of unnatural death. The Ye work to pacify and remove Sogha and Sugut — the troubled spirits of those who died in unnatural ways. Sogha refers to a spirit arising from accidental death, while Sugut is associated with a death in childbirth. Through the night-long recitation of Mundhum, the Yeba drives these spirits away.
• Performing the ritual dance. The Ye are known for a distinctive dance carried out during ceremonies, moving to the rhythm of brass plates and drums while the Mundhum is chanted.

The ritual dress of the Ye

Their costume is noticeably more elaborate than that of the other priests. During a performance the Yeba and Yema appear richly adorned, every item carrying its own name and meaning — transforming the priest from ordinary person into the one who can stand between the visible and invisible worlds.

PhengboYa LogekYesimPhangphoyiYe-Je-PheWasangYa-Burko AplakHehang PongeyYa ThalHongsingMudenphe

The StakesWhy this heritage matters

The Yeba and Yema are far more than performers. Within the community they have long served as doctor, counsellor and spiritual guide at once — present at birth, marriage, sickness and death. Their knowledge was never written down for the public; it passed from teacher to chosen successor, voice to voice, across centuries.

That is also why it is fragile. As younger generations move to cities and the world speeds up, the long Mundhum recitations and the practitioners who hold them grow fewer. Documenting places like Wasanglung, naming the rituals, and recording the meaning of each object is itself an act of protection — turning living memory into something the next generation can return to.

To preserve the Mundhum is to preserve a way of understanding the world: one in which the mountain at Phakumba is not just a slope above a river, but the remembered beginning of a sacred calling.

A note on sources: the geography of Phakumba, the Maiwa Khola and the Jaljale range is documented, while the account of Wasanglung as the origin site of the Yeba is held within Limbu Mundhum tradition. The roles and regalia of the Yeba and Yema are drawn from Limbu cultural scholarship. If you carry this knowledge in your own family, your corrections and additions are warmly welcome in the comments.