Tibetans

By REBECCA R. FRENCH

Bodpa, Bhotia (Chinese terms for Tibetans)

The Tibetans are a Central Asian group living primarily on the high plateau of southwestern China and throughout sections of the Himalayas. The term “Tibet,” which appeared in various forms on early maps of Arabic explorers, is thought to be derived either from the Tibetan term for “upper Tibet,” stod bod, or from the early Indian name for Tibet, bhot. Ethnic Tibetans often refer to themselves by the place-names of their geographic area or a tribal name, such as the Ladakhi and Zanskari people of northern India and the Golock tribal people of Amdo. Prior to 1959, the majority of Tibetans lived on the Central Asian plateau bounded on the south by the Himalayas, on the west by the Karakorum, on the east by the Tangkula Mountains, and on the north by the Kunlun Mountains and the Taklamakan Desert. This is a high mountain plateau of more than 3.9 million square kilometers, which averages 12,000 feet above sea level, has extreme temperature fluctuations, and receives 46 centimeters or less of annual precipitation. Following 1959, a substantial number of Tibetans migrated from the plateau to Bhutan, Nepal, India, and other countries. There are currently several large reserves of Tibetans in India, some with as many as 5,000 inhabitants.

Estimates of the Tibetan population are subject to dispute. No internal census was taken prior to 1950; various foreign visitors estimated the total population of Tibetans at between 3 and 6 million. The fighting in the 1950s over control of the plateau caused substantial human loss. China is home to about 5.4 million Tibetans, according to the 2000 Chinese census, with less than half of them in the Tibetan Autonomous Region (TAR). Approximately 111,170 Tibetans, including those born in Tibet and those of Tibetan ancestry, live in exile in Asia and Oceania, Europe, and North America, according to a census conducted in 1998 by the Central Tibetan Administration (CTA) in Dharamsala, India

Tibetan belongs to the Tibetan-Burmese Branch of the Sino-Tibetan Language Family. It is also known as “Bodish.” There are two Tibetan languages, Central Tibetan and Western Tibetan, with many regional dialects spoken throughout the plateau, the Himalayas, and parts of South Asia. Tibetan is monosyllabic with no consonant clusters, five vowels, twenty-six consonants, an ablaut verb system, tones and a subject-object-verb word order. The Tibetan script is a readaptation of a northern Indian script devised for the first historical king around A.D. 630.

The plateau and contiguous areas of Tibetan settlement are now part of the People's Republic of China (PRC) and divided between the Tibet Autonomous Region and the neighboring provinces of Qinghai, Gansu, Sichuan, and Yunnan, where several prefectures or counties are designated for Tibetans as autonomous areas. In Dharamsala, India, the Dalai Lama heads the administration of the government-in-exile of Tibet (Central Tibetan Administration), which oversees the affairs of Tibetans in exile in India, Nepal, and abroad. Negotiations conducted in the 1980s did not produce any compromises nor result in the return of the Dalai Lama to Tibet.

Archaeological and linguistic evidence indicate that people entered the plateau from the northeast approximately 13,000 years ago. In time they migrated throughout the plateau and settled in larger numbers along the Tsangpo River, which runs parallel to the Himalayas in the southern region. In this southerly arc, Tibetan kingdoms began to develop as early as A.D. 400, according to some commentators. The oldest extant example of Tibetan writing, which dates from around A.D. 767, indicates the presence in this region of a settled kingdom. Tibetan history begins with the Tibetan Empire period (A.D. 632 to 842): armies conquered and controlled large sections of Central Asia to the northwest and northern China and Mongolia to the northeast. After the murder of the last king of the Yarlung dynasty, decentralization ensued and many smaller states were formed throughout the plateau. Buddhism, which had first been introduced during the empire period, gained popularity during this time and became a central feature of Tibetan ethnicity.

In the thirteenth century one sect of Tibetan Buddhism (Sa skyas pa[), with the help of Mongolian supporters, took control of much of central Tibet and established a theocracy that lasted for 100 years. Three secular dynasties followed between the years 1354 and 1642—the Phagmogru, the Rinpung, and the Tsangpa. In the middle of the seventeenth century the Gelugspa, or Yellow Hat sect of Tibetan Buddhism, with the help of Mongolian supporters of their charismatic leader, the Dalai Lama, took control of the central part of the plateau, which they held for 300 years. British incursion into the country from the south and Chinese incursions from the north in the twentieth century demonstrated that the Tibetans had not cultivated military strength. In late 1950 the army of the People's Republic of China marched into eastern Tibet and claimed sovereignty over the plateau but left the Dalai Lama as leader and administrator of the country. A decade of negotiation and military skirmishes ensued, which culminated in a general uprising and the flight of the Dalai Lama and thousands of his supporters to India in 1959.

Tibetans are traditionally divided into groups according to geographic origin, occupation, and social status. The plateau was divided into five general regions, each with a distinctive climate: the northern plain, which is almost uninhabited; the southern belt on the Tsangpo River, which is the heart of the agricultural settlements; western Tibet, a mountainous and arid area; the southeast, which has rich temperate and subtropical forests and more rain-fall; and the northeast terrain of rolling grasslands dotted with mountains, famous for its herding. Traditionally, settlement patterns were determined by region and by the three major occupations: peasant farming, nomadic herding, and monkhood. Peasants lived in single dwellings as well as village clusters, whereas nomads lived in tents, camping both individually and in clusters as they followed their herds through seasonal migration patterns. Monks lived in monasteries of varying sizes, some reportedly with as many as 10,000 individuals. There are only three major urban centers, all located in the southern belt of the plateau. The nonnomadic society was also divided into hierarchic social groups ranging from the ruler and the noble elite to private landowners, peasants, and craftspersons.

Since the incorporation of Tibet into the PRC after 1950, many Han Chinese have migrated onto the plateau, primarily to the urban centers, where they now outnumber the ethnic Tibetans. Nomads were originally settled into camps but have recently been allowed to resume transhumance patterns.

Prior to 1950, Tibetan farmers' primary crop was high-altitude barley, with wheat, buckwheat, peas, mustard, radishes, and potatoes following in importance.

Irrigation systems were coordinated by the village, which was also the cooperative unit for corvée. Nomads raised yaks (animals particularly suited to the high altitude and severe climate of the north), sheep, a cow-yak cross-breed, and at lower altitudes, cattle and goats. At annual or biennial markets throughout Tibet, rural nomads and farmers exchanged produce and purchased other commodities. For distant nomadic communities, annual grain-trading expeditions occurred in the late fall; each encampment of tents functioned as a unit and each family contributed a member or supplies to the group traveling down to the market in the lower regions. The large urban centers, such as the capital city of Lhasa, had daily markets displaying goods from all over the world. Particular areas of Tibet were well known for the production of certain crops or the manufacture of certain items or raw products. For example, bamboo for pens and high-quality paper came from the southeast, excellent horses from the northeast, wood products from the east, and gold, turquoise, and other gems from two or three specific areas in the south and west. Currently, most of the manufactured products in Tibet come from urban centers in the PRC, but local markets in the rural areas continue to allow for pastoralist-peasant exchange.

Tibetans practiced a wide range of traditional trades, including flour milling, canvas painting, paper making, rope braiding, wool and fiber processing, weaving and textile production, tanning, metalwork, carpentry, and wood carving. Individual household or small-scale production was the norm, with the exception of a few activities, such as the printing of religious manuscripts and books, which was handled at large monasteries on more of a mass-production basis.

There is evidence of Tibetans trading extensively both on and off the plateau as early as the seventh century A.D.—exporting raw materials and importing manufactured products. Overland routes to China, India, Nepal, and Central Asia allowed the large-scale export of animals, animal products, honey, salt, borax, herbs, gemstones, and metal in exchange for silk, paper, ink, tea, and manufactured iron and steel products. The government granted lucrative yearly monopolies on products such as salt. In the nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth, British, Russian, and Chinese missions to Tibet tried to control trade and open markets in the country. Since 1950 trade has been regulated by the PRC.

There were traditional distinctions in wealth and status among both the peasants and nomads. Hired laborers and servants freed wealthier families from most of the manual labor of daily life. Social distinctions between aristocrats and commoners or between different strata of the commoner class were reflected in dress, housing, and speech used to one's superiors, peers, and inferiors.

Although Tibetan women are in charge of child rearing, food preparation, cooking, and other domestic activities and men do the bulk of the work outside of the home. Both genders are commonly capable of performing all basic household and non-household tasks. In the monasteries and nunneries, same-sex occupants perform all of the household and external tasks for the community. In larger cities, butchering, metalworking, and other low-status crafts were traditionally confined to particular groups.

Prior to 1955, much of the Tibetan plateau was considered the ultimate property of the central government in Lhasa and the ruler of Tibet, the Dalai Lama. Each peasant household had a deed, in the name of the eldest male, to the property that it farmed. Many of the peasant farmers were also organized into estates, which were an intermediate form of title holding by monasteries, incarnate lamas, or aristocratic families. The laborers attached to the estate owed taxes and corvée to the lord and were not free to move elsewhere without permission. Being bound to an estate, however, did not prevent some families from hiring others to fulfill their obligations to the lord or from traveling for purposes of trade and pilgrimage. These three levels of ownership constituted the bulk of Tibetan land tenure before 1950. Land-reform policies in Tibet under the Communist government have involved a few experiments with collective farming and ownership. Most rural peasants still farm the land of their family household, but intermediate titles have generally been extinguished.

The most important functioning kin group is the extended family constituted as a household. Family names, which are carried by the males of some families, reflect the patrilineal inheritance pattern and are also used to demarcate the noble families.

Formal kinship terminology in the southern region, among the peasant population, distinguishes between patri- and matrilaterals at the second ascending generation, is bifurcate-collateral at the first ascending generation, and shows a typical Hawaiian generational pattern at Ego's generation level. In practice, this system results in a strong bias toward distinguishing between one's matrilateral and one's patrilateral kin for the purposes of inheritance. For relatives of his or her own level, including cousins, the average Tibetan simply uses the terms “brother” and “sister.” There is local and regional variation in terminology throughout the plateau.

Among the peasants of the southern arc of the Tibetan plateau, traditional marriage patterns exhibited a great deal of variety and flexibility through the individual's life cycle. The seven forms of marriage were: fraternal polyandry (a set of brothers marries one woman), father-son and unrelated male polyandry, sororal polygyny (a set of sisters marries one man), mother-daughter and unrelated female polygyny, and monogamy. Monogamy was the most frequent form of marriage. Traditionally, Tibetans calculated the degree of relation allowed in marriage as five generations back on the mother's side and seven on the father's, although many were unable to determine genealogy this far back. Although of astrological and cosmological import, marriage was viewed as a nonreligious joining of two households and individuals. Postmarital residence was generally virilocal.

Marriages were class-endogamous. Serfs from different manors who wished to marry required permission from their lords or their lords' agents. Yellow sect lamas do not marry, but lamas of most other sects are free to do so.

The peasant household was the chief domestic unit; it was often, but not necessarily constituted of three generations of males and their wives and children. Individuals of both genders rotated in and out of the household with great flexibility.

Although the traditional inheritance pattern for peasant land was patrilineal descent and primogeniture, both males and females could inherit land or receive it as a gift. Maintenance of the household as the landholding, tax-paying unit could be accomplished by any member of the family. Personal property could also be inherited by any member of the family, although women commonly passed on to their daughters their jewelry, clothing, and other personal possessions. Monks and nuns did not inherit. Wills, oral or written, could alter the inheritance pattern.

Tibetans dote on their children but believe in strong discipline and religious instruction. Traditionally, the pattern in Tibet was to raise children to follow the same occupations as their parents unless they chose to become traders or take religious vows and leave the family. Only those children entering government service were given formal education.

The web of bilateral kin associated with households was the basis for local social organization. Villages had headmen and head irrigators who coordinated agricultural projects.

Titleholders coordinated estates into social units. Monasteries and nunneries operated as independent social units within communities. Tibetans also form associations called skyid sdug for a variety of purposes: to coordinate prayers, dances, singing, religious festivals, marriages, pilgrimages, funerals, commercial ventures, and other activities.

Much of the Tibetan plateau has been governed, since as early as the seventh century, by a central dynasty or theocracy with a small administrative bureaucracy. This bureaucracy was supplied with officials from the elite nobility and the monasteries in exchange for intermediate title to estates of land. For 300 years prior to 1950, the government was headed by a Buddhist monk, the Dalai Lama, who, upon death, reincarnated into a small child and resumed leadership in a new body. Under his leadership, the bureaucracy was divided into an ecclesiastical branch and a secular branch that handled a redistributive economy based on taxation by household. Networks of monasteries controlled by sects of Tibetan Buddhism were also important political players. Local authority was placed in the village headman or estate steward, who coordinated tax collection and corvée and handled local disputes. Historically, Tibetans have embraced the union of religion and politics and left the functions of the military, thought to be irreligious, to foreign groups such as the Mongols or Chinese. Since 1950 Tibet has been gradually incorporated into the government of the PRC.

Tibetans have an ancient and unique set of legal procedures that were based on early law codes and commonly used throughout the plateau. There were few governmental sanctions for any crimes other than murder and treason. A variety of forums was available for the settlement of disputes, and most cases remained open until all parties had agreed. Traditional social control was based on family and village relations.

Conflict occurred over land boundaries, animal ownership, commercial agreements, injuries, fights, and a wide range of other issues. In general, it was disdained as an indication of a lack of religious training.

Tibetans are devoutly religious. Tibetan Buddhism, the religion of the entire population except for a tiny Muslim minority, is a syncretic mix of Indian Buddhism, Tantrism, and the local pantheistic religion. The organization of the religion, its public practice, and the observance of religious holidays are coordinated primarily by monasteries associated with temples. The priests, called lamas, were estimated to constitute from one-sixth to one-fourth of the population prior to 1950. Although the goal of Tibetan Buddhism is individual enlightenment, the social organization of the religion rests on a laity that is expected to support the religious practices of the monastic population. Thus, Tibetans contributed sons, produce, savings, and labor to the monasteries to acquire religious merit.

Monasteries of various sects of Tibetan Buddhism were the centers of educational training in all the basic arts, crafts, and professions, including medicine. Monk initiates were divided into groups according to social status and ability and given training for a variety of tasks. The degree of religious teacher, dge bshe, required more than ten years of diligent study, memorization of texts, practice in debate, and examinations. Monks conducted most public religious ceremonies (including operatic performances), which constituted the bulk of Tibetan ceremonial life and followed the traditional Buddhist calendrical cycle. Oracles, mediums, and exorcists were also commonly monks but could be local peasants in rural areas. In western Tibet and pastoral areas of Qinghai, an earlier form of Buddhism mixed with the pre-Buddhist native religion (Bon) is practiced.

Tibetan traditional arts focused on religious worship and included scroll paintings of deities, sculpture, carved altars, religious texts, altar implements, statues of precious metal inlaid with gems, appliquéd temple hangings, operatic costumes for religious performances, religious music, and religious singing. Most of these crafts were carried out by monks in monasteries. In addition to collections of older Buddhist scriptures, Tibetan writing and literature includes works on history, philosophy, medicine, mathematics, and astronomy as well as works of fiction and poetry. Local peasants produced utilitarian household objects for their own use or purchased them at a local market. Women wore multi-banded front aprons, regionally specific headdresses, and jewelry.

Tibetan medicine evolved over a thousand years into a series of nonintrusive techniques including listening to blood flow through the wrist, analysis of urine and anatomical parts, listening to the heart and lungs, questioning the patient, and administering carefully prepared herbal pills. The body is considered to be composed of various elements balanced by nutrition, religious practices, mental states, and relations with deities. The training process for physicians was long and often limited to monks.

Tibetans practice sky-burial, a process of returning the corporal body to the environment by pulverizing the parts and leaving them exposed to the elements and the vultures. An individual's karmic seeds are thought to remain in bar do, a liminal zone, for forty-nine days after death, during which time they enter a new body (that of a human, a hell being, a god, or an animal) to start a new life cycle. This recurrent process of life, death, and rebirth continues until an individual achieves enlightenment.

This culture summary is from the article, "Tibetans," by Rebecca R. French, in the Encyclopedia of World Cultures, Vol. 6, Russia and Eurasia/China, Paul Friedrich and Norma Diamond, eds. Boston, Mass.: G. K. Hall & Co. 1994, pp 493-496. Population figures were updated by Ian Skoggard in June, 2010.

Aziz, Barbara (1978). Tibetan Frontier Families. Durham, N.C.: Carolina Academic Press.

Dalai Lama (1962). My Land and My People. New York: Potala Corporation.

French, Rebecca (in press, 1993). The Golden Yoke: The Legal System of Buddhist Tibet. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press.

MacPherson, Seonaigh, Anne-Sophie Bentz and Dawa Bhuti Ghoso, Global Nomads: The Emergence of the Tibetan Diaspora (Part I). http://www.migrationinformation.org/USFocus/display.cfm?ID=693 Accessed June 18, 2010.

Snellgrove, David, and Hugh Richardson (1980). A Cultural History of Tibet. Boulder, Colo.: Prahna Press.