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As a hybrid of the mycological and larval, caterpillar fungus is highly valued as a commodity on the eastern seaboard of China because, according to traditional Chinese medicine, it is thought to maintain overall health and treat illnesses of the liver and immune system. For Han Chinese, the potency of caterpillar fungus is augmented by representations of the Tibetan grasslands as natural (Ch. tian ran) and the only place where a particular hybrid, <i>Ophiocordyceps sinensis</i>, is found. This chapter explores the gathering and trading of caterpillar fungus by Tibetan nomadic pastoralists and how this connects them to a wider world of Hui traders and wealthy Chinese consumers. Taking up the argument by Tsing <i>(HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory, 3</i>(1), 21-43, 2013) that commodities do not merely define the value system of capitalism, but rather have to be created, and often through non-capitalist interventions such as gifts and relationships, this chapter suggests that Tibetan nomadic pastoralists and middlemen themselves play an important role in creating and recreating the commodity value of caterpillar fungus. Because it is taken up by nomadic pastoralists themselves, caterpillar fungus is able to transform and supersede their relationships with each other and with others in a more profound way compared with many other “products of change.” The growing adoption of a different kind of thinking is viewed not as simple imposition of a global capitalist system but rather as a complicated ecology of relationships that has the potential to transform subjectivities.
Questioning the distinction between ‘cold’ and ‘hot’ societies, and an implied separation between myth and history, anthropologists have increasingly urged for an understanding of both myth and history as equally valid modes of shared social consciousness. This article takes up this point of view by referring to a written history of Lhagang, a town in Eastern Tibet; a history that appears to have the transformative content and oral circulation of myth. Using Lévi-Strauss’ structural analysis of myth and Santos-Granero's concept of topograms to demonstrate the <i>mythemes</i> that derive from the written history and circulate among Lhagang Tibetans, the article argues that, within the political and cultural context of Lhagang, myth and history shift in and out of indigenous categories even while being categorically distinct.