Tibetan New YearPosted by johnnyyy on June 10th, 2019 The time of the Tibetan New year is on the first day of the first month in Tibetan Calendar. Due to the algorithms, dates of Tibetan New Year and the Chinese Lunar New Year are not exactly the same. Generally speaking, there are four different cases: the Tibetan New Year's Day and the Lunar New Year completely overlap, different by one day, by one month or one month and one day. Tibetan will prepare for the festival two weeks prior the date, they start with the cleaning of houses, making or buying new clothes or all the members of the family, and the making of different foods for offering on the family altar. Houses are also decorated with the eight auspicious symbols, as well as many other signs and symbols. According to Tibetan traditions, on New Year's Day morning, the first one to get up the earliest in each family should be the housewives. After washing, she should go to the river or the well, to get the first bucket of water, which is considered as the lucky water. Any family could be the first one to get the water, this family will have good luck for the coming year, and they will also get good weather for the crops. Then the housewife feeds livestock, and wakes up the whole family. All the family members will wear festive costumes, and the younger one should say "Tashi delek" (Good luck in Tibetan language) to the elder first, then they will give the best wishes to each other. For the seats, they follow the costoms to sit according to the seniority. Before eating, each person must first dip in the mouth with tsampa flour. The elder fetch one called grain hopper, which is equipped with roasted barley, ginseng fruit, fried beans, fried grains and other food, which also stuck barley spike. Each person catches a little and throws into the air, which is the ritual for the new year, then they grab a little to eat.
After the ceremony, the whole family will sit together again around the table, drinking barley wine, eating ginseng fruit and other food, to celebrate the New Year. During this day, the whole family gather together and keep the door closed, no sweeping, no unlucky words are allowed, and they do not visit other family on the first day of the new year. Like it? Share it! More by this author |