Tibetan people

The Tibetan people are a people living in Tibet and some surrounding areas, stretching from Central Asia in the West to Burma and China in the East. In the People's Republic of China (PRC) they are one of the largest among the fifty-six ethnicities officially recognized to constitute the so called Zhonghua Minzu (Chinese nation). According to an official census of 1959, the number of Tibetans in the PRC was 6,330,567 [1]. The SIL Ethnologue documents an additional 125,000 Tibetan exiles living in India, 60,000 in Nepal, and 4,000 in Bhutan. Furthermore, ethnic Tibetans also live in both Pakistani and Indian Kashmir: the Baltis in Pakistan number to 400,000, and the Ladakhis in India number to 260,000.

Divisions

The Tibetan nation can be divided into several groups. These include the Changri, Nachan, and Hor, who are further divided into fifty-one sub-tribes, each of them maintaining a distinct yet related cultural identity.

The Hor, who are further sub-divided into thirty-nine sub-tribes, are of Mongolian and Turkic descent. The Tibetans in Kham are also known as the Khampa, while those in the Central Tibet are known as the Pöba (bod pa). Descendants of the Karjia are known as the Ando. Although the Tangut are now extinct as a distinct people, their descendants can be found among the Tibetans and Salar of Gansu. Tibetans in Kashmir are divided into the Ladakhis, Baltis and Burig

Origins

It is generally agreed that Tibetans share a considerable genetic background with Mongols, although other main influences do exist. Some anthropologists have suggested an Indo-Scythian component, and others a Southeast Asian component; both are credible given Tibet's geographic location. The romantic claim that American Hopi and Tibetans are close cousins is not likely to find support in genetic studies, although strong cultural similarities may be found between the two groups. Some light has been shed on their origins, however, by one genetic study: Su, Bing, et al. (2000), in which it was indicated that Tibetan Y-chromosomes had multiple origins, one from Central Asia while the other from East Asia.

Tibetans traditionally explain their own origins as rooted in the marriage of a monkey and a mountain ogress. Tibetans who display compassion, moderation, intelligence, and wisdom are said to take after their fathers, while Tibetans who are "red-faced, fond of sinful pursuits, and very stubborn" are said to take after their mothers.

There are two main ethnic divisions in Tibet, in addition to the Han Chinese moved there in recent years by the PRC government. Central Tibetans (those living in the vast area around Lhasa, Ü-Tsang) obviously share a strong Mongolian component in their ancestry. The tent-dwelling nomads of the high Tibetan plateau—known as Drokpa (Tibetan: འབྲོག་པ་; Wylie: 'brog pa), meaning "steppe-dwellers"—and the "Khampas" in Kham are, by comparison, taller and longer-limbed, with sharper features and more aquiline noses. Some have suggested they are of Scythian descent. The Eastern Tibetans are not as mixed as the Central Tibetans in the sedentary areas. In Western Tibet, notably around Ladakh and Kashmir, people are closer to those of Indo-Aryan descent.

Notable features

Since the late nineteenth century, the Chinese presence in Eastern Tibet has increased, and often the Khambas there are bilingual. Still, mixed marriages between Tibetans and Chinese are not very common.

Tibetans typically have light brown skin, black, somewhat wavy or even curly hair, moderately high cheekbones, and brown eyes, although some have very light hazel or green eyes, due to their Mongol heritage. The men typically have full moustaches but sparse beards; traditionally, they pluck out their beards with tweezers. Nomads have long braided hair, and the women usually braid their hair in 108 braids.

Tibetans have a legendary ability to survive extremes of altitude and cold, an ability no doubt conditioned by the extreme environment of the Tibetan plateau. Recently, scientists have sought to isolate the cultural and genetic factors behind this adaptability [2]. Among their findings was a gene which improves oxygen saturation in hemoglobin and the fact that Tibetan children grow faster than other children to the age of five (presumably as a defense against heat loss since larger bodies have a more favorable volume to surface ratio). The Tibet Paleolithic Project is studying the Stone Age colonization of the plateau, hoping to gain insight into human adaptability in general and the cultural strategies the Tibetans developed as they learned to survive in this harsh environment.

Religion

Tibetans generally observe Tibetan Buddhism and a collection of native traditions known as Bön (also absorbed into mainstream Tibetan Buddhism). The Tibetan Muslims are also known as the Kache.

Legend said that the 28th king of Tibet, Lhatotori Nyentsen, dreamed of a sacred treasure falling from heaven, which contained a Buddhist sutra, mantras, and religious objects. However, because the modern Tibetan script was not introduced to the people, no one knew what was written on the sutra upon the first look. Buddhism did not take root in Tibet until the reign of Songtsen Gampo, who married two Buddhist princesses, Brikhuti and Wencheng. It then gained popularity when Padmasambhava, widely known as Guru Rinpoche, visited Tibet at the invitation of the 38th Tibetan king, Trisong Deutson.

Today, one can see Tibetans placing Mani stones all over. Tibetan lamas, both Buddhist and Bön, play a major role in the lives of the Tibetan people, conducting religious ceremonies and taking care of the monasteries. Pilgrims plant their prayer flags onto the sacred grounds as a symbol of good luck.

The prayer wheel is a means of chanting the mantra by revolving the object several times in a clockwise direction. It is widely seen among Tibetan people. In order not to desecrate religious artifacts such as Stupas, mani stones, and Gompas, Tibetan Buddhists walk around them in a clockwise direction, although the reverse direction is true for Bön. Tibetan Buddhists chant the prayer "Om mani padme hum", while the practitioners of Bön chant "Om matri muye sale du".

Culture

Main article: Culture of Tibet

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 Indian scroll-painting with Nepalese and Kashmiri painting, appeared in Tibet around the 8th 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 fourteenth 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 seven hundred 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

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. Tibetan homes and buildings are white-washed on the outside, and beautifully decorated inside.

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 two thousand types of plants, forty animal species, and fifty 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 up to seven 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 sky-funeral master arrives to carry the deceased body up to the burial ground, with friends and a lama following closely behind. The master rips open the body of the deceased, then calls for the vultures to devour it. The skeleton is hammered into pieces as finely as possible for the vultures to eat. Sometimes flour is added at the end to mix the bone with the flesh. At a good sky funeral the whole body (including the bones) are eaten by the vultures. This means that the deceased was a pure person. The skull is kept at the 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.

Clothing

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.

Marriage customs

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, and is becoming increasingly more common, despite many ethnic Tibetans have negative sentiments towards the Han due to ethnic tensions caused by Chinese domination of Tibet.

See also

• Tibetan American
• Ladakhis
• Baltis
• Burig
• Monpa Tibetan

References

• This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.
• Goldstein, Melvyn C., "Study of the Family structure in Tibet", Natural History, March 1987, 109-112 ([3] on the Internet Archive).
• Su, Bing, et al. "Y chromosome haplotypes reveal prehistorical migrations to the Himalayas". Human Genetics 107, 2000: 582–590.

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