Tibetan New Year
01 · Historical Records
In the morning, everyone brings hada (ceremonial scarves) and the like to a nearby temple to worship the Buddha images, and pays New Year visits at the doors of the lamas and spiritual teachers with whom their own family has close relations.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
The Tibetan New Year is the most solemn traditional festival of the Tibetan people in the course of the year, roughly the same as the Lunar New Year of the Han people. The Tibetan New Year is calculated according to the Tibetan calendar. It begins on the first day of the first month of the Tibetan calendar and ends on the fifteenth, lasting fifteen days. Because the whole people believes in Buddhism, the festival activities are full of a strong religious atmosphere; it is an ethnic festival that entertains both the gods and the people, combining celebration and prayer. Preparations for the New Year generally begin in the early twelfth month of the preceding year. Besides buying New Year goods for food, drink, and amusement, every household makes a grain container called "qema": in a wooden box painted with colored patterns, fried barley grains are placed on one side and tsampa mixed with butter on the other, with barley ears and colored flowers molded from butter inserted on top. A bowl of barley seeds is also soaked in water so that green shoots one or two cun long sprout by New Year. The qema and the barley shoots are set in the center of the shrine, praying for a bumper harvest of all grains in the coming year. As the festival approaches, the men are busy cleaning the courtyard, while the women carefully make "kasai", a pastry deep-fried in butter, in shapes such as ears, butterflies, strips, squares, and circles, painted with colors and coated with sugar. They are at once works of art decorating the shrine and a delicacy for entertaining guests. The varieties and colors of the kasai often become a symbol of the diligence, wisdom, and warmth of the mistress of the house, and are especially eye-catching during the festival. On the twenty-ninth day of the last month of the old year, people clean the kitchen, hang new curtains on the doors and windows, and lay new sitting cushions in the rooms; they also sprinkle many dots of white dry flour on the center wall of the cleaned kitchen or on the roof beams, called "yase", and paint patterns of the "eight auspicious treasures". At dusk, each household eats "gutu", a soup of dough lumps. At night the "guduojia" ceremony is held. On the thirtieth day, sweets and other foods are set out before the Buddhist niche in the main room as offerings. Patterns such as the wan (svastika) symbol are also drawn outside the main gate with white earth, and at the same time an offering of kasai and the like is placed before the stove as an offering to the kitchen god. On the morning of the first day, after the first crowing of the rooster, the housewives get up and carry back the first bucket of clean water from a nearby water source. Each household sends someone up to a mountaintop to burn sang. At the same time, sang smoke rises from the sang stoves of every household. After returning home, the housewives give the cooked "guandian" to the sleeping old and young of the whole family to drink; after getting up, everyone eats "zhitu" together. Afterward, the whole family puts on festive attire and gathers before the "zhusu qema" to wish one another a happy New Year. Early on the morning of the first day, the "zhega" go from door to door, pushing their way in to wish everyone a happy New Year. When the sun comes out, two people from each household take highland barley wine and the "zhusu qema" to the various villages to exchange New Year greetings. On returning home, the whole family gathers for lunch, drinking, singing, and dancing together in high spirits; on the second day, people begin going out visiting or inviting one another; on the third day, every household holds the "tuosuo" activity of renewing the prayer flags and burns sang on a nearby mountaintop; from the fourth to the fifteenth day is generally the entertainment time of the Tibetan New Year; on the afternoon of the fifteenth, there is a special kind of guozhuang (circle dance) called "zhaxijie", marking the end of the New Year. After that afternoon, every household takes down the New Year offerings and each begins preparing to return to busy work. The Tibetan New Year is a festival created by the Tibetan people in the course of labor and production; its content and form are full of strong ethnic and religious color, and it is an epitome of the cultural customs of the whole of Tibet.
The qima box and the sprouting barley
A painted box of roasted grain and barley mixed with butter, topped with ears and butter flowers, together with a bowl of sprouting seed, is set at the centre of the altar.
Making kasai
Butter dough is fried and shaped as ears, butterflies, strips, squares and rounds, then coloured and sugared for both altar and table.
Yase and the guduojia rite
On the twenty-ninth of the last month the kitchen is swept, new hangings and mats laid, flour dusted in patterns on walls and beams, and dumplings eaten at dusk.
Carrying water and the smoke offering on the first day
Before the first cockcrow the housewife draws the first bucket of clean water, shares the morning gruel with the sleeping household, then the family dresses to greet the new year.
The Zhega wandering minstrel
From dawn on the first day minstrels go from door to door singing greetings, and by sunrise households carry wine and the qima box to neighbouring villages.
Replacing the prayer flags and the closing dance
On the third day the prayer flags are renewed and smoke offered from a summit; the fifteenth afternoon closes with the special circle dance, after which the offerings come down.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
In Lhasa, the Tibetan New Year is knit into one whole by three interlocking networks: monasteries, city quarters, and households. On the main day, families send representatives up to the mountaintops early in the morning to burn sang, and the sang smoke rising from every household's sang stove carries across the whole city; early on the morning of the first day the zhega go from door to door singing congratulations, the procession moving from one courtyard to the next — once the courtyard gates open, the festival has truly arrived. Thereafter the households exchange New Year greetings with highland barley wine and zhusu qema, until the zhaxijie guozhuang on the fifteenth brings the first month to a close.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
All the events of the Tibetan New Year are scheduled day by day from the first to the fifteenth day of the first month of the Tibetan calendar; no other stretch of the year's calendar is more finely detailed than this. Making kasai, offering the qema, carrying back clean water, burning sang, sending off the zhega, renewing the prayer flags, and dancing the zhaxijie — each matter falls on a fixed day or half-day, and after the fifteenth the offerings are removed and each household returns to its labors. This closing that turns from ritual to work is the most essential stroke of the plateau's agricultural calendar. Whether it is preserved or not, taught or not, all depends on whether there are people who live out the days according to this list.
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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