STRANGE RITES

Southland Times, Issue 23229, 18 June 1937, Page 7

STRANGE RITES

TIBETAN NEW YEAR NATIVES’ SUPERSTITIONS The British Mission to Tibet has returned to India from Lhasa with picturesque account of the Tibetan New Year ceremonies. The Tibetans believe that before one can usher in an auspicious New Year all the evil influences that have accumulated during the old one must be driven out. A devil dance is accordingly held in the great Eastern Court of the Palace at Lhasa on the 29th day of the last month of the year and all officials are present. The ceremony seen by the British Mission included a dance lasting over two hours to the strains of a band of lamas playing cymbols, drums and trumpets. Hashang, the Chinese priestgod of happiness, attended by servants wearing death’s head masks, presided over the dances, seated on a throne. First dancers in demon masks pirouetted with arms outstretched, then in hurried performers grotesquely masked and crowned with skulls. Next four dancers representing skeletons scattered ashes from their fingers before capering round. There was an awed hush as a tall magician in ropes embroidered with skulls and with an apron of bones wove spells with a skull and the representation of a thunderbolt. Lamas marched in in procession and amid eerie'music the magician brandished skulls. A paper with a picture of all the devils was burnt on it and finally came a procession of soldiers in ancient armour and plumed helmets and of lamas with censers. Amid a fusillade of shots the devils were routed.