Losar or the Tibetan New Year is in full swing in Tibet or other regions with sizable Tibetan population. You may have already read these customes elsewhere, but which were of great interest to me as I read introduction to that event.
Traditionally, on the first day of the New Year, the housewife will get up very early, and, after cooking a pot of barley wine for the family, she will sit beside the window awaiting the sunrise. As the first ray of sunshine of the New Year touches the nearby earth, the housewife takes a bucket and heads for a nearby river, or well, to fetch the year's first bucket of water, which is seen as the most sacred, clearest water of the coming year. The family that fetches the first bucket of water from the river/the well is believed to be blessed with good luck for the coming year.
On the nearby farms, housewives cook an equal number of sheep heads as there are family members. The cooked sheep heads are then presented to the most elderly person in the family, who thereafter passes a sheep's head to each person present, using a small knife, where the hierarchical order in which the sheep heads are passed out is determined by the age of the family members - in another word, the older family members will receive a sheep head first; the youngest, last.
On the first day of the New Year, celebrations are usually restricted to the immediate family, with the second and third day being time to visit friends and relatives. The second and third day is also time for the tibetan to visit monasteries and make offerings.
No comments:
Post a Comment