Tibetan people
Tibet boasts a rich culture. Tibetan festivals such as
Losar,
Shoton,
Linka, and the Bathing Festival are deeply rooted in indigenous religion and also contain foreign influences. Each person takes part in the Bathing Festival three times: at birth, at marriage, and at death. It is traditionally believed that people should not bathe casually, but only on the most important occasions.
Art
Tibetan art is deeply religious in nature, from the exquisitely detailed statues found in
Gompas to wooden carvings and the intricate designs of the
Thangka paintings. Tibetan art can be found in almost every object and every aspect of daily life.
Thangka paintings, a syncretism of Chinese scroll-painting with Nepalese and Kashmiri painting, appeared in Tibet around the 10th century. Rectangular and painted on cotton or linen, they usually depict traditional motifs including religious, astrological, and theological subjects, and sometimes the
Mandala. To ensure that the image will not fade, organic and mineral pigments are added, and the painting is framed in colorful silk broadcades.
Drama
The Tibetan folk opera, known as
Ache lhamo, which literally means "sister goddess" or "celestial sister," is a combination of dances, chants and songs. The repertoire is drawn from Buddhist stories and Tibetan history.
Tibetan opera was founded in the
14th century by
Thangthong Gyalpo, a lama and a bridge builder. Gyalpo, and seven girls he recruited, organized the first performance to raise funds for building bridges, which would facilitate transportation in
Tibet. The tradition continued uninterrupted for nearly 700 years, and performances are held on various festive occasions such as the Lingka and Shoton festival. The performance is usually a drama, held on a barren stage that combines dances, chants, and songs. Colorful masks are sometimes worn to identify a character, with red symbolizing a king and yellow indicating deities and lamas. The performance starts with a stage purification and blessings. A narrator then sings a summary of the story, and the performance begins. Another ritual blessing is conducted at the end of the play.
Architecture
Tibetan architecture contains Chinese and Indian influences and reflects a deeply Buddhist approach. The Buddhist wheel, along with two dragons, can be seen on nearly every Gompa in
Tibet. The design of the Tibetan
Chörtens can vary, from roundish walls in
Kham to squarish, four-sided walls in
Ladakh.
The most unusual feature of Tibetan architecture is that many of the houses and monasteries are built on elevated, sunny sites facing the south. They are often made out a mixture of rocks, wood, cement and earth. Little fuel is available for heating or lighting, so flat roofs are built to conserve heat, and multiple windows are constructed to let in sunlight. Walls are usually sloped inwards at 10 degrees as a precaution against frequent earthquakes in the mountainous area.
Standing at 117 meters in height and 360 meters in width, the
Potala Palace is considered the most important example of Tibetan architecture. Formerly the residence of the
Dalai Lama, it contains over a thousand rooms within thirteen stories and houses portraits of the past Dalai Lamas and statues of the Buddha. It is divided between the outer White Palace, which serves as the administrative quarters, and the inner Red Quarters, which houses the assembly hall of the Lamas, chapels, 10,000 shrines, and a vast library of Buddhist scriptures.
Medicine
Tibetan medicine is one of the oldest forms in the world. It utilizes up to 2,000 types of plants, 40 animal species, and 50 minerals. One of the key figures in its development was the renowned eighth century physician
Yutok Yonten Gonpo, who produced the Four Medical Tantras integrating material from the medical traditions of Persia, India and China. The tantras contained a total of 156 chapters in the form of Thangkas, which tell about the archaic Tibetan medicine and the essences of medicines in other places.
Yutok Yonten Gonpo's descendant,
Yuthok Sarma Yonten Gonpo, further consolidated the tradition by adding eighteen medical works. One of his books includes paintings depicting the resetting of a broken bone. In addition, he compiled a set of anatomical pictures of internal organs.
Life cycles
There is a strong belief amongst Tibetans in
reincarnation, including the Buddhist concept of
Bardo during post-mortem. Religious ceremonies relating to birth and death are conducted at appropriate times, many stemming from rituals of the ancient
Bön religion, though they have been changed over time to accommodate more prevalent Buddhist practise.
During the birth ceremony of
Pangsai, relatives come together for celebration and ritual. Gifts are presented to the parents and infant, including food, clothing, and white
khada scarves. A pancake feast may also be prepared for the visitors. It is the usual custom that a high-ranking lama is also present to name the baby.
At death, Tibetans are given a "sky burial", which is believed to take the spirit of the dead safely to heaven. Before the sky burial, the body is wrapped in a white cloth and kept in the house for several days while lamas chant sutras to alleviate the punishments for sins committed while alive. A red jar containing
tsampa dough mixed with blood and other food products is decorated with a white
hada and hung at the door of the house. The friends of the deceased also mourn, bringing pots of wine a day before the removal of the body.
On the day of the funeral, a body-cutter arrives to carry the deceased body up to the burial ground, with friends and a lama following closely behind. The body-cutter rips open the body of the deceased, then calls for the vultures to devour it. The skeleton is abandoned at the burial site.
Tibetans believe that the vultures have the power to bring the spirit of the body to heaven. In the event that the vultures do not eat the body, or devour only a portion of it, It is believed that the person committed serious sins and is doomed to a tenure in one of the
hells. If the vultures devour every part of the body or at least the majority of it, however, the soul continues on into a purer rebirth. Beliefs as to whether or not the soul rises into
Nirvana differ depending on the local religious school of Buddhism and region.
Most Tibetans wear their hair long, although in recent times some men do crop their hair short. The women plait their hair into two queues, the girls into a single queue. Men who keep their hair long coil it on top of their heads, often wrapped in a red cloth that serves as a turban.
Because of Tibet's cold weather, women wear skirts and silk or cloth jackets. The men wear long, loose trousers, accompanied by a loose and sometimes sleeveless gown, with a band at the top tied on the right, and woolen or leather boots. One or both sleeves on a garment are generally let off and tied around the waist. Herders sometimes wear sheepskin robes in place of the jacket. In addition, men wear long waistbands, and women wear colorful aprons.
Tibetans usually greet a friend or relative by saying
"Tashi Delek", removing their hats, and bowing gently. However, when greeting an elderly man or other respected person, they lower the hats to the floor as a sign of respect.
The
1911 Encyclopædia Britannica article on Tibet reported that "among the customs of the Tibetans, perhaps the most peculiar is
polyandry, the brothers in a family having one wife in common, mainly for the reason of avoiding the dividing of property."
"
Monogamy, however," the article continued, "seems to be the rule among the pastoral tribes . . . ." Polygamy is also practiced by some, mainly by the Tibetans in
Kham. Tibetan fraternal polyandry continues in recent times. Intermarriage with
Han Chinese exists but is uncommon, as many ethnic Tibetans have negative sentiments towards the Han due to ethnic tensions caused by Chinese domination of Tibet.
*
Tibetan American*
* Goldstein, Melvyn C., "Study of the Family structure in Tibet",
Natural History, March 1987, 109-112 ([
1] on the
Internet Archive).
*Su, Bing,
et al. "Y chromosome haplotypes reveal prehistorical migrations to the Himalayas".
Human Genetics 107, 2000: 582–590.
*
Tibetan Government in Exile's Official Website*
Travel China Guide: Article on modern Tibetan people.
*
Imaging Everest: Article on Tibetan people at the time of early mountaineering.
*
Tibetan costume
