In the Forbidden Land Part 30

A very painful case came before the court of the Jong Pen at Taklakot.

The husband of a Tibetan lady had died, and she, being enamoured of a handsome youth some twenty years younger than herself, married him. Her husband's brother, however, came all the way from Lha.s.sa after her and claimed her as his wife, though he had already a better half and a large family. She would not hear of leaving the husband of her choice, and after endless scenes between them, the case was heard by the Jong Pen of Taklakot. The Tibetan law was against her, as, according to it, she decidedly belonged to her brother-in-law; but money is stronger than the law in the land of the Lamas.

"For the peace of all, you can arrange things this way," was the advice of the Jong Pen. "You can divide your property, money and goods, into three equal parts: one to go to the Lamas, one to your husband's brother, and one to be retained by yourself."

The woman consented; but, much to her disgust, when two parts had been paid out and she was hoping for peace, a question was raised by the Jong Pen as to why she should even retain one-third of the fortune if she no longer made part of the deceased man's family? Thus orders were instantly given that she should be deprived of everything she possessed.

However, the woman was shrewd enough to deceive the Jong Pen's officers, for one night, having bundled up her tent and her goods and chattels, she quietly stepped over the boundary and placed herself under British protection.

The mode of knowing and identifying children in Tibet is peculiar. It is not by the child's likeness to his parent, nor by other reasonable methods, that the offspring is set down as belonging to one man more than to another, but this is the mode adopted. Supposing that one married man had two brothers and several children, the first child belongs to him; the second to his first brother, and the third to his second brother, while the fourth would be again the first man's child.

The rules of courts.h.i.+p are not very strict in Tibet, yet intercourse with girls is looked upon as illegal, and in certain cases not only are the parties, if discovered, made to suffer shame, but certain fines are inflicted on the man, the most severe of all being that he must present the young lady with a dress and ornaments. In the case of "gentlefolks"

the question is generally solved to the satisfaction of everybody by the man marrying the woman, and by his gracefully presenting "veils of friends.h.i.+p" to all her relations and friends, together with articles of food; but if by mischance she should be placed in an awkward position before the eyes of the world, and the man will not hear of a matrimonial union, then efforts are made to prevent the birth of the child alive. If these are not successful, the mother must be maintained until after the child's birth. In such cases the illegitimate child remains the man's, and suffers the usual indignities of illegitimacy.

Sixteen in the case of women, and eighteen or nineteen in that of men, is regarded as the marriageable age. Motherhood continues until a fairly advanced age, and I have seen a woman of forty with a baby only a few months old. But, as a rule, Tibetan women lose their freshness while still quite young; and no doubt their custom of polyandry not only contributes to destroy their looks but also is the chief cause that limits the population of Tibet.

The Lamas are supposed to live in celibacy, but they do not always keep to their oath, tempted, no doubt, by the fact that they themselves invariably go unpunished. If, on the other hand, in cases of adultery, the culprit be a layman, he has to pay compensation according to his means to the husband, the amount being fixed by the parties concerned and their friends, or by the law if applied for.

In ordinary cases of marital trespa.s.s, presents of clothing, _tsamba, chura, guram, ka.s.sur_ (dried fruit) and wine, accompanied by the never-lacking _Kata_, are sufficient to allay the injured husband's anger and to fully compensate him for any shame suffered.

The only serious punishment inflicted is, however, in the case of the wife of a high official eloping with a man of low rank. Then the woman is subjected to flogging as a penalty for her infidelity, her husband is disgraced, and her lover, after being subjected to a painful surgical operation, is, if he survives, expelled from the town or encampment.

High officials, and a few wealthy people who are not satisfied with one wife, are allowed by the law of the land to keep as many concubines as their means allow them.

CHAPTER LXVI

Tibetan funerals--Disposal of their dead--By cremation--By water--Cannibalism--Strange beliefs--Revolting barbarity--Drinking human blood--The saints of Tibet.

TIBETAN funerals are interesting, but they so closely resemble those of the Shokas, which I have described at length, that any detailed account of them would be a mere repet.i.tion of what I have already written.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A YOUNG LAMA]

For the disposal of the dead body itself, however, the Tibetans have curious customs of their own. The most uncommon method, owing to the great scarcity of fuel, is that of cremation, which is only employed in the case of wealthy people or Lamas, and is effected in exactly the same fas.h.i.+on as among the Shokas. Another and more usual plan is to double up the body, sew it into skins, and let it be carried away by the current of a stream. But the commonest method of all is the revolting ceremony which I now proceed to describe.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A RED LAMA]

The body of the deceased is borne to the top of a hill, where the Lamas p.r.o.nounce certain incantations and prayers. Then the crowd, after walking seven times round the body, retire to a certain distance, to allow ravens and dogs to tear the corpse to pieces. It is considered lucky for the departed and his family when birds alone devour the greater portion of the body; dogs and wild animals come, say the Lamas, when the deceased has sinned during his life. Anyhow, the almost complete destruction of the corpse is anxiously watched, and, at an opportune moment, the Lamas and crowd, turning their praying-wheels, and muttering the everlasting "_Omne mani padme hun_," return to the body, round which seven more circuits are made, moving from left to right.[25] Then the relatives squat round. The Lamas sit near the body, and with their daggers cut to pieces what remains of the flesh. The highest Lama present eats the first morsel, then, muttering prayers, the other Lamas partake of it, after which all the relations and friends throw themselves on the now almost denuded skeleton, sc.r.a.ping off pieces of flesh, which they devour greedily; and this repast of human flesh continues till the bones are dry and clean!

[Ill.u.s.tration: CUP MADE OF HUMAN SKULL]

The idea of this ghastly ceremony is that the spirit of the departed, of whom you have swallowed a piece, will for ever keep on friendly terms with you. When birds and dogs do not shrink from feeding, it is a sign that the body is healthy, and fit for themselves.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CHOKDEN, OR TOMB OF A SAINT]

Revolting beyond words is the further fact that, when a man has died of some pestilential disease, and, owing to the odour, the birds will not peck at the body, nor will the famished dogs go near it, then a large number of Lamas, having made the usual exorcisms, sit down by it, and do not get up again until they have devoured the whole of the rotten human fles.h.!.+ The relatives and friends are wiser and less brutal. They rightly believe that, if voracious animals will not partake of the meal proffered them, it is because the body is that of a sinner against whom G.o.d is angry. And who better than the Lamas could make peace between G.o.d and him? So let the Lamas eat it all.

In the case of not finding sufficient Lamas to perform these rites, the body is either disposed of by throwing it into the water, or else, the relations having first partaken of a morsel of the flesh, it is bound to a rock to let animals or time do the rest.

The Lamas are said to have a great craving for human blood, which, they say, gives them strength, genius and vigour. When sucking wounds that are not poisoned, they drink the blood, and also on certain occasions wounds are inflicted for the sake of sucking the blood. At other times the cups cut from human skulls, found in all monasteries, are filled with blood, and the Lamas in turn satisfy their thirst out of them.

But enough of this. It is sickening to set it down, though my book would be incomplete if I had made no mention of the cannibalism of the Lamas.

When a saintly Lama dies, or some old man much respected by the community, either parts of the flesh, or, if cremation has been applied, some of his ashes, are preserved and placed in a _Chokden_ erected for the purpose; and, judging by the number of these structures one finds all over Tibet, one feels inclined to think that half the population of the country must have been saints, or else that the standard of saintliness in the sacred land of the Lamas is not prohibitively high.

[25] In the case of a sect called Bombos, the circuits are made in the reverse fas.h.i.+on, as also are their prayer-wheels turned from right to left.

CHAPTER LXVII

Another commotion--Two hundred soldiers--A stampede--Easy travelling--A long _Mani_ wall--Mosquitoes.

COMING out of our tent in the morning, we noticed an unusual commotion among the Tibetans. A number of mounted men with matchlocks had arrived, and others similarly armed immediately went to join them from the tents.

They seemed excited, and I kept my eye upon them while I was cooking my food. There were some two hundred in all, picturesquely garbed. They seemed to be good hors.e.m.e.n, and looked well as they rode in a line towards us. A little way off they stopped and dismounted, and the leaders came forward, one stalwart fellow in a fine sheepskin coat marching ahead of the rest. His att.i.tude was very arrogant, and, dispensing with the usual salutations, he approached quite close, shaking his fist at me.

"_Kiu mahla lokhna nga rah luck tiba tangan_" ("I will give you a goat or a sheep if you will go back"), he said.

"_Kiu donna nga di tangon_" ("And I give you this to make you go back!") was my quick answer, while I unexpectedly administered him one straight from the shoulder that sent him flat on his back and sprawling on the ground.

The army, which, with its usual prudence, was watching events from a respectful distance, beat a hasty retreat. The officer, though unhurt, scrambled away, screaming. The Tibetans had so far behaved with such contemptible cowardice that we could hardly congratulate ourselves on such easy successes. We began to feel that really we had no enemy at all before us, and very likely we became even careless. Anyhow, we ate our food and gave this affair but little thought.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A MANI WALL ON THE ROAD TO LHa.s.sA]

The Tibetans kept their distance, and did not trouble us again that day.

Those who had not ridden off retired timidly inside their black tents, and not a soul was to be seen about the encampment--which might have been deserted, so silent and so empty did it appear. I registered my daily observations, made a sketch of one of the black tents, and wrote up my diary; after which we raised camp.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "AND I GIVE YOU THIS TO MAKE YOU GO BACK"]

Our progress was now comparatively easy, along a broad gra.s.sy plain, and we proceeded without further disturbance in a South-easterly direction, observing a high snowy peak at 20 (b.m.), and a low pa.s.s in the mountain range to our North-east at 55 (b.m.). A very high range stood ahead of us in the far distance, with low hills between. In going round one of these lonely hills we found at the foot of it another and more important _mani_ wall of some length, with numberless inscriptions of all ages and sizes on stones, pieces of bone, skulls and horns. Farther on, to the South, there were three smaller hillocks and two larger ones. The soldiers we had routed at the encampment had proceeded in the direction we were now following, and we were, in fact, treading all along on the footprints of their ponies.

We had to cross a river and a number of rivulets, and so troublesome was it each time to take off one's shoes and clothes to wade through, that we bundled up our clothes on the yaks, and travelled along for the rest of the afternoon bare-footed and with nothing on but a _doti_ (loin-cloth), in the style adopted by fakirs.

In an arc of a circle from 120 to 180 (b.m.) we noticed very low hills, and from 160 to 220, some thirty or forty miles off, could be seen much more clearly now the high range we had observed before. The sun was extremely hot, the ground marshy, the air being thick with huge and very troublesome mosquitoes. We were quickly covered from head to foot with bites, and the irritation caused by them was intense. Halting on the right bank of a large stream at 15,600 feet, we named this spot Mosquito Camp. At sunset the number of mosquitoes around us was such as to drive us nearly mad, but fortunately, the moment the sun disappeared, the thermometer fell to 33, and we had a peaceful night.

In the evening we saw a number of hors.e.m.e.n riding full speed on a course about one mile south of ours, but converging to the same direction. No doubt they were sent to keep the authorities ahead well informed of our movements.

CHAPTER LXVIII

Was.h.i.+ng-day--A long march--_Kiang_ and antelope--Benighted--The purchase of a goat--Ramifications of the Brahmaputra--A detour--Through a swamp--Mansing again lost and found.