Three Years in Tibet

by Ekai Kawaguchi

Words similar to these are said, and at the termination of the sheppa the gate is open.

I must here not omit to say that on her way to the bridegroom’s, as she is riding past a certain village, the bride is sometimes caught hold of and carried off by the people of the village, on the pretext that her coming will cause some injury to them, as it is believed by them also that the bride has lost the protection of the Gods of her native place, and that during her journey many evil spirits and epidemic diseases must have taken hold of her, and that these, on arriving at the village, will do great damage to its farms and cause much injury to the inhabitants. So the people of the village carry off the bride as a compensation for such prospective damage, and in order to get a safe passage through the village the attendants of the bride must pay ransom. I may say that this is a very rare occurrence in a town, but in lonely parts of the country it will sometimes take place. It must be understood that it is generally in the case of a family which is not popular with its neighbors that the bride receives such treatment.

Upon the gate being opened, the mother of the bridegroom comes out with some sour milk and chema in her hands. Chema is a mixture of baked flour, butter, sugar and taro-root. Taro-root is a kind of potato, produced in Tibet, as large as a man’s little finger, and very nice to eat. Chema and sour milk are used only when there is a celebration of some extraordinary occasion. A little of this is distributed to each person in the procession, who receives it on his palm and eats it. This ceremony over, the mother leads the party into her house and gives a banquet in honor of the bride, when the priest of the “Old School” is called upon to inform the Gods of the village and of the house that an addition has been made to the members of the family by the arrival of the bride, and that, therefore, the Gods are prayed to extend their arms to the bride, and to be her protectors henceforward.

These prayers over, the father and mother of the bridegroom give a piece of kata to the couple, and to all the other people who have come to see the bride off or to receive her. Such is the ceremony that makes the happy couple husband and wife. Before the feasting has begun to flag the newly married couple are removed to an adjacent room. The people who have come either to see the bride off or to receive her, stay in the house of the bridegroom, and attend the banquets which are given daily, and during this time the friends and relatives come to join the banquet, every one bringing with him a reasonable amount of presents. The feasting lasts for two or three days at least, and for a month at most. Tibetans are very fond of meat, and most of their food is more fatty even than Chinese cookery. They give long banquets richly furnished with such food, and the reader can well imagine how foolishly idle are the people of Tibet in their habits. The feasting over, the people who have come to see the bride off, or to receive her, say good-bye to the house, but still, for several days following, the friends and servants of the bride remain in the house with the bride, this being the custom. If the bride is from a well-to-do family, she takes with her a servant from her father’s house, and make her stay with her in the new family to serve her as long as she lives. In this way the wedding ceremonies come to an end. In one month or one year after the marriage the bride, together with the bridegroom, comes to her old home, and they stay there as long as she likes, sometimes for one month and sometimes for three. When making the first visit to her father’s house, the bride takes with her not more than two or three persons. Her husband stays with her for several days, and then returns to his house, but when the day comes on which the bride has promised her husband to return to his house, the husband comes for her and takes her home again.

In case the bridegroom has a brother, the bride must marry him also in six or twelve months after marrying the eldest brother. The wedding ceremony in such a case is carried on privately at the house of the bridegroom, the mother of the bridegroom acting as the middleman. In this case the eldest brother, to whom the bride was first married, takes himself off from the house on business, or for pleasure, so as to let the bride and his younger brother marry during his absence. It makes no difference if the bridegroom has three or more brothers; the bride has to marry each one of them separately, and in the same manner. Sometimes the bride and her brothers-in-law live together at their pleasure, without having any formal ceremonies to celebrate their weddings.

Such is the polyandry practised by the people of Tibet, and called the sa-sum. In a family where the bride has more than one bridegroom, it is very seldom that we find the brothers living together. If one of the brothers is at home the other absents himself, either on business, if he is a merchant, or on official duties. In this way all possible means are taken to keep only one of the brothers at home, each in his turn.

Polyandry flourishes in Tibet even at the present time, and it is considered by the general public to be the right thing to follow and, in consequence, if ever a merchant (having been out of the country and seen much of the outside world and observed how shameful his habits at home have been) should protest against this sort of wedlock, he is shunned by his fellow-men as a crank, and his protest brushed away with “Luk-su-mindu,” which means “there is no such a custom (in Tibet).” This peculiar and ridiculous wedlock, as well as this unreasonable relationship between a husband and wife, has its origin in the Bon religion, and in spite of the introduction of true Buḍḍhism into Tibet the habit has come down to the present time and remains flourishing. The fact is that among the Buḍḍhist believers there has scarcely been any one who has ever given any thought to social problems, and moreover, as the priests of ancient times were generally recluses, who paid no attention whatever to the application of their religion to the needs of the practical world, or to making the principles of true Buḍḍhism as distinct as possible, the natural outcome has been that this shameful custom, altogether contradictory to the principles of Buḍḍhism, has remained in this part of the world. The blame lies entirely with the priests; it must not be laid at the door of Buḍḍhism.

[CHAPTER LVI.]
Tibetan Punishments.

One day early in October I left my residence in Lhasa and strolled toward the Parkor. Parkor is the name of one of the principal streets in that city, as I have already mentioned, and is the place where criminals are exposed to public disgrace. Pillory in Tibet takes various forms, the criminal being exposed sometimes with only handcuffs, or fetters alone, and at others with both. On that particular occasion I saw as many as twenty criminals undergoing punishment, some of them tied to posts, while others were left fettered at one of the street crossings. They were all well-dressed, and had their necks fixed in a frame of thick wooden boards about 1⅕ inches thick, and three feet square. The frame had in the centre a hole just large enough for the neck and was composed of two wooden boards fastened together by means of ridges, and a lock. From this frame was suspended a piece of paper informing the public of the nature of the crime committed by the exposed person, and of the judgment passed upon him, sentencing him to the pillory for a certain number of days and to exile or flogging afterwards. The flogging generally ranges from three hundred to seven hundred lashes. As so many criminals were pilloried on that particular occasion, I could not read all the sentences, even though my curiosity was stronger than the sense of pity that naturally rose in my bosom when I beheld the miserable spectacle. I confess that I read one or two of them, and found that the criminals were men connected with the Tangye-ling monastery, the Lama superior of which is qualified to succeed to the supreme power of the pontificate in case, for one reason or another, the post of the Dalai Lama should happen to fall vacant. The monastery is therefore one of the most influential institutions in the Tibetan Hierarchy and generally contains a large number of inmates, both priests and laymen.