On New Year’s morning a piece of fire-colored silk, or handkerchiefs sewn together in the shape of a flag, is put over a heap of baked flour, on which are strewn some dried grapes, dried peaches and small black persimmons. The head of the house first picks up some of the fruits with his right hand, tosses them up three times, and eats them. Then his wife, guests and servants follow his example one after another. Next comes Tibetan tea, with fried cakes of wheat flour for each. These are brought in on a tray, something in the shape of a copper plate, gilded and white at the centre. They drink the tea and eat the cakes, but, unlike the Japanese, exchange no words of congratulation, and seem mostly to enjoy the eating. They take meat dried, raw, and boiled, but roast meat is regarded as unceremonial.
Tibet produces fresh-water fish, but the Tibetans do not usually eat it; they subsist chiefly on the meat of the yak, goat, and sheep, for they consider it sinful to kill fish. Pork is eaten, but only by the Tibetans who have dealings with the Chinese. After the morning ceremony, they again meet at about ten o’clock to drink tea or wine, and eat cake or fruits. At two in the afternoon they have dinner, at which they eat, if rich, a sort of macaroni mixed with eggs. The soup has mutton or something else dipped in it. At nine or ten o’clock in the evening they make a sort of meat gruel, commonly composed of wheat flour, wheat dumplings, meat, radishes, and cheese. But the course of dishes mentioned above is not settled, for they sometimes eat the gruel in the morning, though generally in the evening. The above are the dishes taken by the Tibetans of the higher circles.
The lowest class find it hard to get cheese and meat for their gruel, and put fat in their stead. Nor is it less difficult for them to get radishes. If they put wheat dumplings in the gruel, which they make on special occasions, it is reckoned among their best dishes; their usual gruel is made very thick with baked flour with some herbs and flowers put in it. In the winter, when they have no fresh herbs or flowers, they use what they have stored and laid by during the summer. The radish is however much grown in some parts of Tibet, where it is largely used. The Tibetan is fonder of baked flour than of rice, all classes generally living on the former. The Tibetans at Darjeeling live on baked flour from Tibet, for they fall ill if they live on rice. Baked flour can of course be had in India, but the Tibetan seems much superior to the Indian, for they send orders to Tibet for their native productions.
In this way I passed the festive New Year season, and, while reading my Scriptures amid these charming scenes, learned much about Tibetan customs and homes, and found good material for my study.
READING THE TEXTS.
A little white and black bird like a crow, called Kyaka in Tibetan, used to come to my window. It was a knowing bird, and could tell one man from another, and was very regular in its ways. One day while I was looking out of my window I saw one of a flock, seemingly their head, pecking another to death, as if angry with the latter because it had quarrelled with the other members of the flock. I was surprised and told my landlord about it, when he told me that birds were more regular than men, and related several stories which showed how strict the birds were. It is a common saying, he added, that one might deviate from human laws by the breadth of a log, before a hair-breadth’s deviation from bird’s law would be tolerated.—(Cha tim ta nga tsam shikna mi tim nya shing tsam shik go.)
Having stayed in this place a long time in order to read the Scriptures, I was determined to leave on the 14th March, as it was getting warmer. In the morning the family asked me to recite to them the Three Refuges, and the Five Commands or moral precepts of Buḍḍhism, which I did with pleasure. After dinner as I was leaving the house I was presented with some money and a priest’s robe, red in color and made of wool, which must have cost some thirty-five yen. I departed accompanied by a servant, who carried my luggage, for they told me they could not send me off on horseback, much though they desired to do so, for all their horses were away on trading journeys.