CONTENT INTRODUCTION ________________________________________________________________________ 3 BIBLIOGRAPHY _________________________________________________________________________ 10 CONCEPTION, PREGNANCY AND CHILDBIRTH __________________________________________ 14 BIBLIOGRAPHY _________________________________________________________________________ 21 TABLE 1: BASIC KINSHIP TERMS IN STANDARD TIBETAN _________________________________________ 24 CHILDHOOD, UPBRINGING & CHILDREN FOLKLORE ___________________________________ 25 BIBLIOGRAPHY _________________________________________________________________________ 30 MATURING, CHOICE OF THE PARTNER AND WEDDING _________________________________ 33 BIBLIOGRAPHY _________________________________________________________________________ 43 FAMILY LIFE __________________________________________________________________________ 47 BIBLIOGRAPHY _________________________________________________________________________ 55 PROFESSIONS IN TIBETAN SOCIETIES __________________________________________________ 58 INTRODUCTION _________________________________________________________________________ 58 AGRICULTURAL COMMUNITIES _____________________________________________________________ 59 PASTORALIST’S (NOMADIC) COMMUNITIES ____________________________________________________ 62 URBAN PROFESSIONS AND TRADE ___________________________________________________________ 64 BASIC CONSTITUENTS OF TIBETAN ECONOMY IN PRE-MODERN TIME ________________________________ 64 TIBETAN SOCIETY IN EXILE AND PROFESSIONS TODAY ___________________________________________ 65 CONCLUSION ___________________________________________________________________________ 67 TIBETANS & THEIR AMUSEMENTS _____________________________________________________ 68 ACHE LHAMO __________________________________________________________________________ 70 CHAM ________________________________________________________________________________ 73 THE SOUND OF TIBET ____________________________________________________________________ 75 GAMES AND GAMBLE ____________________________________________________________________ 79 SPORTS _______________________________________________________________________________ 81 FESTIVALS AND CELEBRATIONS ____________________________________________________________ 82 NEW FORMS OF ARTS ____________________________________________________________________ 84 BIBLIOGRAPHY _________________________________________________________________________ 86 ANNUAL RITUALS: LOSAR (LO GSAR) OR TIBETAN NEW YEAR ___________________________ 90 INTRODUCTION: ________________________________________________________________________ 90 LOSAR: TIBETAN NEW YEAR ______________________________________________________________ 91 TIBETAN CUISINE: LOSAR MEALS AND SWEETS _________________________________________________ 92 LAMA DANCE: TIBETAN SACRED DANCE _____________________________________________________ 94 LUNGTA: TIBETAN PRAYER FLAGS __________________________________________________________ 97 CONCLUSION ___________________________________________________________________________ 98 BIBLIOGRAPHY ________________________________________________________________________ 100 TIBETAN ORALITY____________________________________________________________________ 101 EXAMPLES OF VARIOUS PROVERBS, SAYINGS, AND RIDDLES______________________________________ 103 SWINDLERS AND OTHER TRICKSTERS [KHRAM PA] _____________________________________________ 105 TONGUE TWISTERS _____________________________________________________________________ 108 EPIC STORIES – GESAR __________________________________________________________________ 109 BIBLIOGRAPHY ________________________________________________________________________ 111 1 RELIGIOUS LIFE: SAVING OF LIFE (TSHE THAR); A RITUAL OF ANIMAL RELEASE _______ 113 INTRODUCTION: _______________________________________________________________________ 113 WHAT IS TSHE THAR? ___________________________________________________________________ 114 SAVING OF LIFE IN EARLY BUDDHIST TEXTS __________________________________________________ 115 MAHĀYĀNA IDEAS BEHIND THE TSHE THAR RITUAL ____________________________________________ 117 HOW ARE THE ANIMALS RELEASED? ________________________________________________________ 118 COMMERCIAL ENTERPRISE AND MODIFICATION OF THE ECOSYSTEM _______________________________ 121 CONCLUSION __________________________________________________________________________ 121 BIBLIOGRAPHY: _______________________________________________________________________ 123 DEATH AND FUNERAL RITUALS _______________________________________________________ 125 INTRODUCTION ________________________________________________________________________ 125 PRE-HISTORICAL PERIOD _________________________________________________________________ 125 HISTORICAL PRE-BUDDHIST PERIOD ________________________________________________________ 126 ACCOUNT ON 11TH CENTURY IN TIBET („PERIOD OF TRANSITION“) ________________________________ 129 ACCOUNT ON BAR DO THOS GROL AND INTERMEDIATE STATE IN BOTH INDIAN AND TIBETAN SOURCES ____ 130 HELLS AND AFTERLIFE __________________________________________________________________ 132 CONCLUSION __________________________________________________________________________ 133 2 INTRODUCTION mi rig[s] 'dra yod na dgod kha slong/ zog rig[s] 'dra yod na gyod kha gtugs/ If race is the same, happiness will rise up, if goods are the same, quarrel will appear.1 lung ba re la chu red/ sa cha re la skad red/ Every valley has its river, every place has its dialect.2 When taking courses on Tibetan studies at the Department of South and Central Asia at the Charles University we were mostly occupied by language, literature, history and religious traditions obviously so important for the Tibetan culture. We read Tibetan texts (predominantly religious) as well as modern Tibetan studies literature. Having done so, we could imagine how life of the Lhasa nobility in early 20th century looked like, and how the religious authorities like tulkus and abbots of big monasteries or prominent scholars lived and worked at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. We also heard about interesting individuals who had an extraordinary or remarkable fate like Gendün Chöphel or Bapa Phüntso Wangye (e.g. Goldstein, Sherap and Siebershuh 2004). Nevertheless, we were mostly interested in the “ordinary life”. Therefore, we sought an answer for the following question: How do (or did) the ordinary Tibetans live? Moreover, what can visitors expect when staying with the Tibetans? Our Czech colleagues from Indian studies may have read a popular book written by a prominent Czech indologist describing the entire life of a Hindu from one birth to another one (Preinhaelterová 1997). Nobody (including the author) says it is a perfect and a complete description of the Hindu society but it is possible (e.g. for a student who had not been to India yet) to get some basic insight what roughly could be expected when dealing with the Hindus and which rituals and ideas are connected to important moments of human life in India. If we 1 Tibetan proverb (gtam dpe) from an undated book of proverbs published under BDRC Resource ID W2PD19118 (https://www.tbrc.org/#!rid=W2PD19118) on p. 24. 2 Tibetan proverb (gtam dpe) from an undated book of proverbs published under BDRC Resource ID W2PD19118 (https://www.tbrc.org/#!rid=W2PD19118) on p. 118. 3 try to find a similar book focused on the life of the Tibetans, i.e. the ethnographic3 description of the entire life of a person from his or her birth to their death, we have two choices: The first choice is to read older books from well-known authors like White (1909), Shelton (1921), Bell (1924, 1928, 1931), Duncan4 (1964), Ekvall (1964), Norbu (1997) etc. Apart from that it is possible to read many memoirs (e.g. White 1909, Shelton 1912, O'Connor 1931, Williamson 1987 etc.) or travelogues (e.g. Rockhill 1894, Rijnhart 1904, Waddell 1905, Tucci 1935, Snellgrove 1961, Peissel 1967 etc.) by different authors dealing with the Tibetans. Most of them were written by three groups of Europeans - officials (both civil and military), travellers (both scientists and adventurers) and missionaries5 (both catholic and evangelic). The problem with older literature is, however, the fact that it is based on contacts with a limited number of informants from specific social classes (e.g. mostly nobility or clergymen). They also reflect some views or motivations of their authors which were not purely focused on ethnography and nowadays may not be so obvious.6 Moreover, they in fact cover only chosen regions accessible to these explorers.7 The second choice are several case studies written by Western anthropologists (e.g. Aziz 1978, Ramble 2008 or Childs 2004) or currently by the Tibetans themselves (Norbu 1997 or Karmay 1998). But case studies are mostly focused on one particular locality or group of people or, alternatively, on one particular topic or problem. For that reason, we decided to try to write this short e-book focused on a description of essential life periods and events in the life of the Tibetans. We hope that our e-book will be 3 Here I intentionally use the term ethnography because in this book we strive more for collecting facts and links concerning further reading than for interpretation or comparison with other cultures, or make case studies as social anthropologists usually do. 4 M. H. Duncan himself is an interesting personality. I found only one biography explaining who he was with more details