Day before New Year's Eve (29th day of the 12th lunar month)
the five-grain bucket symbolizes a wish for a good harvest
generally a sheep's head displayed in a herdsman's house is real
and that in an ruban Tibetan family is a colored butter or porcelain
substitute
Usually, explanations of Tibetan festivals start with looking
at the New Year's Day celebrations. However the year's end is
also of special importance and Tibetans observe 'Gutor' while
they are busy preparing for the New Year's Day.
Preparations for New Year start about two weeks before the day
and people arrange their religious offerings, buy new dress clothes,
food and drink for the feasts etc. The feasts include a substantial
amount of 'Dresi' a sweet buttered rice with added raisins, 'Droma',
which is rice boiled with small potatoes, various meats, fruits,
breads, chang, butter tea among others. 'Kapse', a fried sweet
that comes in different shapes and forms, are a must. Tibetans
are supposed to see in the New Year with these sweets piled high
on their tray.
On 'Gutor', Tibetan families eat 'Guthuk' a soup with dumplings,
in the evening. The dumplings contain beans, broken pieces of
wood, chillis, wool, charcoal, or pieces of paper on which various
words are written. People eat them in turn and they tell their
New Year's fortune by checking what the ingredients of the one
they chose. There is also a game played at this time where some
of the family members decide on an unlucky mark in advance and
the one who picks it has to do a forfeit.
Following this everyone participates in the original purpose
of 'Gutor', which is to exorcise the evil spirits from the previous
year by running around with a doll representing a fierce god,
setting off fireworks, and hand-held fire crackers. On the 30th,
New Year's Eve, Tibetans clean their houses and then wait in anticipation
for the following days festivities.
Starting on the 23rd day of the 12th month, people prepare for
the most important festival of the year. Man will purchase dresses,
cloth, sugar, barley beer, rice, flour, tea etc.. Woman will make
`tsamba', butter, cakes, and will fry foods, wash head, plait
braids.
On the 29th or 30th, herdsman will use flour to paint the `eight
auspicious emblems' and use plasters to draw the reversed `swastika'
for good luck. The monasteries will spread foods for the hungry
ghosts and chase away demons.
On the new year's eve, the residence will be cleaned and milk
curd will be mixed with barley flour to make curd-pastry. The
whole family will gather together to enjoy the `rice soup with
nine treasures'.
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The Festival of Banishing Evils falls on December 29 on the Tibetan
calendar. Similar expressions are found in ethnic celebrations
around the world with a theme of driving away evil spirits. On
that day, a sorcerer's dance is performed in monasteries and a
general cleaning is done in every household to get rid of misfortune
and pray for godly blessings. Every family will have a traditional
New Year's Eve dinner of Guthuk and torches are lit and howling
are heard everywhere in a collective prayer for a new
year free from misfortunes.
On New Year's Eve, the family gets together and eats a kind of
bread called dguthug, made of nine ingredients, including dried
meat, butter bits, and the fruit of Manikara zapota. Inside the
dguthug is a bit of wool or charcoal or some peas, pepper, or
other objects. If one finds wool in his dguthug, he is said to
be kindhearted. If he comes upon a piece of charcoal, he is blackhearted.
When the dinner is over, the family members drive away ghosts
by sweeping all the corners of the house, rubbing their bodies
with zanba, and then running outside to cast aside the zanba tainted
with bad luck and disasters at distant road crossings or in the
wilderness. As night falls, bonfires are lit everywhere. The adults
hurry back home for fear of being chased by ghosts, and the youngsters
shout and jump for joy around the fire.
Preparation of Losar Eve
Preparation begins a month in advance. There is a general housecleaning,
and auspicious signs are drawn with white powder in the courtyards
and on the kitchen walls. Every family sprouts qingke barley seeds
in water and puts the seedlings before the family shrine on New
Year's Day as a prayer for an abundant harvest.
Another part of the preparation is the fashioning of a sheep's
head out of colored butter. In the Tibetan language, "sheep's
head" and "the beginning of a year" sound the same,
and the sheep has traditionally been regarded as an auspicious
animal in Tibet. A phyemar, or five-grain bucket, is a must. The
bucket is vertically divided in to two halves by a wooden board
and filled with zanba (roasted qingke barley flour with butter)
and barley seeds and decorated with barley ears and colored butter.
