In the summer of 1982, I was conducting ethnographic research on Tibetan pastoralists in Langtang Valley north-west of Kathmandu Valley. When I was not conducting interviews, studying the Kyirong Tibetan language, or recording life histories, I immersed myself into Langtang community life working (usually with my friends Tengyal and his wife, Tsiring) in the fields and herding camps, and accompanying Langtang Tibetans on their trading trips down to mid-hill Nepali communities. I also joined Tengyal, a tall, thin man of 32, with piercing black eyes, on some of his trips to visit relatives and friends in the village of Syabru Besi, which lies at a day´s walk to the west of Langtang.
One chilly December day, while walking with Tengyal back from Syabru Besi through the forest below Langtang, I noticed a large honeycomb sticking out from the face of a cliff, about 20 feet above, "Do the Langtang people ever gather brang? I asked Tengyal (Brang is honey in the Kyirong Tibetan language). "Only occasionally, since most of the combs are high up on the cliffs," he replied. "Also, it is not always worth the effort because there are two kinds of brang in Langtang. One kind, sabrang, is delicious, just like the honey you buy in stores in Kathmandu. But the other kind, zeebrang, is very different."
What was zeebrang like? "When people eat zeebrang they become disoriented, fall down a lot, get their arms confused with their legs, throw up, have cramps in all their muscles, and cannot see properly, "Tengyal replied, laughing.
Over the course of the next month I asked several other Langtang inhabitants about the mysterious zeebrang. The answer was always more or less the same as Tengyal´s. "After eating zeebrang I puked like never before! I could not walk and had to crawl around on my hands and knees. There were cramps in alt my muscles and I could not see right for hours." What kind of ¦ honey could cause such effects?