Display Of Tibetan Articles

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32073, 22 August 1969, Page 2

Display Of Tibetan Articles

Symbols of the unique Tibetan culture, threatened with extinction since the Chinese invasion of Tibet in 1950, will be on display in Christchurch in a few days. Many of the articles shown were sold to members of Sir Edmund Hillary’s Sunkos River expedition in Nepal by Tibetan refugees.

Mrs Joyce Hamilton, who accompanied her husband, Mr J. O. F. Hamilton, a jet boat driver, on the expedition is organising the exhibition, which will be opened by Lady Hillary on Saturday morning. Before going up the river the party went to Kunde,

where Sir Edmund HiHary’s hospital is situated, and built a new school house. It was during this time that many of the treasures were acquired.

“Every day Tibetans arrived at the door with grubby bundles full of treasures they had brought out from Tibet," Mrs Hamilton said yesterday. Some were household articles, others came from disbanded monasteries. The refugees were forced to sell the articles to gain money to go on living. Moat of the Tibetan refugees Mrs Hamilton encountered in the area were living among the Sherpa people, to whom they are much akin. Others in Nepal are settled in camps, one of which she visited in Katmandu. It was run by the Swiss, who bad organised a carpet industry.

Many refugees found a ready sale for their crafts among tourists.

Proceeds from the exhibition, which will be held at the Little Woodware Shop, in Victoria Street, will go to a home for Tibetan children in Dbarmsala, in North India. New Zealand members of the Tibetan Children's Relief Society support the home. Thirty-two of the children are sponsored by New Zealanders.

The Dalai Lama, who escaped from Lhasa to India after an uprising against the Chinese in 1959, lives in Dbarmsala. The Tibetan Homes Foundation was established in 1963 to provide emergency accommodation for the hundreds of children who fled to the area with their families after the uprising. and the Dalai Lama presented the first home. His youngest sister, Perna Gyalpo, was appointed secretary to the foundation and has remained in charge.

The Tibetan refugees, who cling to the hope of returning to their homeland, have maintained their way of life. They continue to wear colourful, heavy clothing, including the almost knee-high boots of decorated cloth with yak-hide soles, shown among other garments at the exhibition.

Household items reveal a highly developed culture. Copper ink wells come in a variety of sizes, designed along dome lines, which occur in many items.

Tibetan tea is an important part of both everyday life and ritual Tea cups, small bowls with lids, are set on small silver stands surrounded by a gallery. Other tea bowls appear in the display in rich, reddish rhododendron wood, inset with silver. Kitchen utensils are mainly copper, with very long handles. The only cutlery appears tn be the small silver spoons used by the children.

For cooking, there are wooden condiment bowls, with dome lids, and even a miniature scale suspended from an ivory measuring rod. along which the weight is moved.

Many of the items have religious significance, indicating the important part played by Tibetan Buddhism in the

lives of the refugees. An altar has been arranged complete with the thanks (a Wall banging depicting a religious story), a row of seven silver water bowls, tall butter lamps which are kept lit, and a set of copper jugs and bowls for the holy water. A tiny silver offering dish is intricately decorated and a tall offering dish, the torma, is placed ready for the service. The photograph shows Mrs Hamilton arranging a section of the exhibition. She is holding a household jug, and behind this is a set of wood and brass bottles, used to hold beer made from barley. The tall brass and copper jug, left, is a container for holy water, and the wooden tsampa bowl, right, holds barley flour and is painted red and gold.