GRUESOME THIBET.

Hokitika Guardian, 2 December 1922, Page 4

GRUESOME THIBET.

EVEREST CUMBER'S REPORT. LONDON, October 2. Gyantso is one of the only three cities in Tibet. At first you see only the Jong and its rock, but, approaching nearer and passing round the rock, you find the city and the huge monastery. Tiers of gompns and fine massive dwelling-houses of the Lamas, the lords of tlic land, terrace, tlie hillside, and the whole is surrounded by a lmttlemented wall a mile in circumference.

At the Tibetan New Year is enacted at the Temple, the annual ceremony of purifying the city of the evils of the outgoing year. The Lamas produce a ■beggar mail who is willing through fanaticism and promise of eternal merit to risk his life in the strangest of ceremonies. Naked, ho clothes himself in the putrid entrails of animals, with the vile, bloody intestines coiled ■ round his head, neck arms and body.

He represents the evil the disease, the ill-luck and the had things of last year. He runs out of the Temple door and the mad populace heat drums and blow trumpets to frighten away the devil in him. They hurl stones and heat the beggar with sticks. They chase him through the streets out into the open country, if he does not get killed before! After they have disposed thus of the troubles of last year, the people seek omens for good fortune in tlie coining year. Each man leads his none to n starting point outside the

city. The ponies find their own wav home without riders, and those that make their way straight home bring good fortune with them. The most gruesome custom one can see at Gyantso is the disposal of the dead. At daybreak the body is carried to the crest of a low hill,.a mile from the city. After a Lama hasaid prayers and incantations over the naked corpse, the professional butchers slice the body up with knives, cutting off. separately, the legs and arms, and lastly tho head. They hack and smash each member into pulp oil a rock with hatchets, and throw it to the vultures, who stand waiting only sft. away. The birds consume every particle of tlie flesh and tlie crushed hone.