are offered the compliments of the season by all their relatives, dependents, and friends, who, in their turn, are treated with wine by them. When the New Year’s wine has been drunk, the misser (serfs) sing some hymns or glees.
At the New Year the Tibetans watch out for omens for the forthcoming year, the best of which, if one is to start soon on a journey, is to see a young woman with a child in her arms. To see flags, banners, milking of cows, persons carrying vessels filled with water or any other liquid, or timber for house-building or firewood, is lucky, as is also the sight of a corpse on a bier. To meet well-dressed persons, to be greeted by friends, to hear a lucky name, are also held to be signs of good luck; but to see beggars, ragged persons, empty vessels, a person descending a hill, or carrying shoes in his hand, a saddled horse without a rider, to hear impolite or rough language, are portends of bad fortune.[1]
On New Year’s day dancing beggars (or Dre-kar) make their appearance in the streets and houses. They wear masks, usually representing a black devil, with a shaggy, white beard, with cowries for eyebrows and encircling his face, and sometimes with a cowrie on either cheek. They dance and crack jokes to the delight of the guests assembled in each house for the New Year’s breakfast.[2]
In the afternoon there is further feasting in most of the houses, and the guests, both male and female, frequently end the entertainment with a dance (shabdo); first, the women dance alone, then the men, and finally, both sexes together.[3]
The New Year’s festivities terminate on the third day at noon, when the monks of the great lamaseries all meet in the Kyil khording (or Jo khang) to hear the Grand Lama expound the faith. On each succeeding day, till the 24th of the moon, they hold the great prayer-meeting, or monlam chenpo.[4]
- ↑ All these omens of good and bad luck are of equal importance at any time of the year.—(W. R.)
- ↑ I have seen these mummers in North-eastern Tibet. See 'Land of the Lamas,' p. 246.—(W. R.)
- ↑ On the second day of the new year, all the inhabitants gather together to witness a feat performed by two men, each of whom in turn mounts on a wooden saddle and slides down a strong rope fastened from the fort walls to a post buried about nine feet in the ground. 'Report on the Explorations of A. K.,' p. 33. Cf. Jour. Roy. Asiat. Soc., n.s., xxiii. p. 209, and 'Report on lama U. G.'s Exploration,' p. 32, where we learn that on the second day of the New Year the Nachung chos-gyong prophesies the events of the year beginning. See also Huc, 'Souvenirs d'un voyage,' ii. 375 et sqq.
- ↑ The monlam chenpo was instituted by Tsongkhapa in 1407. Csoma, 'Tib. gram.,' 187.
