Tibetan calendar year

Name of Chinese national intangible cultural heritage: Tibetan calendar year

Applicant: Lhasa City, Tibet Autonomous Region

Project No.: 1206

Project No.: Ⅹ - 131

Time of publication: 2011 (the third batch)

Category: folk customs

Region: Tibet Autonomous Region

Type: new item

Applicant: Lhasa City, Tibet Autonomous Region

Protection unit: Lhasa Mass Art Museum

Introduction to Tibetan calendar year:

Applicant: Lhasa City, Tibet Autonomous Region

The Tibetan New Year is the most solemn traditional festival of the Tibetan people, which is roughly the same as the Chinese New Year of the Han nationality. The Tibetan calendar year is calculated according to the Tibetan calendar. It lasts for 15 days from the first day of the first month of the Tibetan calendar to the end of the 15th. Because the whole people believe in Buddhism, the festival is permeated with a strong religious atmosphere. It is a national festival that entertains both gods and people, celebrates and prays.

Preparations for the new year usually begin in early December of the previous year. In addition to buying new year's goods for eating, drinking and playing, every household has to make a grain bucket called "qiema", that is to say, around the wooden box painted with colorful patterns, there are Zanba made of fried wheat grains and ghee, on which are inserted the flowers made of highland barley ears and ghee. We also need to soak a bowl of highland barley seeds in water to make them grow one or two inches of seedlings in the new year. "Qiema" and wheat seedlings are worshipped in the center of the divine case, praying for a bumper harvest in the coming year.

Near the festival, men are busy cleaning the courtyard, while women are elaborately making "Kasai", a kind of pasta fried with butter, which is divided into ear shape, butterfly shape, strip shape, square shape, round shape and other shapes, coated with pigment and wrapped with sugar. It is not only a work of art to decorate the divine table, but also a delicacy to entertain guests. The variety of "Kasai" often becomes the symbol of the heroine's diligence, wisdom and enthusiasm, which is particularly eye-catching in the festival.

On the 29th of the last month of the old year, people clean up the kitchen, hang new curtains on the doors and windows, lay new card mats in the room, and sprinkle a lot of white powder with dry flour on the middle wall of the cleaned kitchen or on the beam of the room, which is called "sub color", and draw the "eight treasures auspicious" pattern. In the evening, every family wants to eat "Gutu". In the evening, the "Guduo Jia" ceremony will be held. On the 30th, candy and other food were placed in front of the shrine in the main room as offerings. At the same time, a "Kasai" and other offerings should be provided in front of the stove to serve the kitchen god. On the morning of the first day of the new year, after the rooster crows, the housewives get up and go to the nearby water source to carry back the first bucket of clean water. Each family sent people to the top of the mountain to simmer mulberry. At the same time, mulberry smoke rose from every household's mulberry stove. When the housewives get home, they give the cooked "Guandian" to the sleeping family. When they get up, they eat "Zhitu" together. After that, the whole family put on holiday costumes and went to "zhusu Chema" to celebrate the new year.

Early in the morning, zhega would go door to door to celebrate the new year. In the morning, we took hada and others to the nearby temples to pay homage to the Buddha statues, and to the lamas and gurus who are close to our family to pay a new year's visit. When the sun comes out, two people in each family take highland barley wine and "zhusu qiema" to each village to pay a new year's call. When they go home, the whole family get together for lunch, drinking, singing and dancing; on the second day of the junior high school, they begin to go out or treat each other; on the third day of the junior high school, all families hold "Tuosuo" activities to update the Sutra flags, and simmer mulberry on the nearby mountain top; from the fourth day to the fifteenth day, it is generally the entertainment time of the Tibetan New Year; on the afternoon of the fifteenth day, there is a special kind of Guozhuang, namely "zaxijie", It means the end of the new year. After the afternoon, each family will unload the new year's offerings and begin to prepare for their busy work.

The Tibetan calendar year is a festival created by the Tibetan people in the process of labor and production. Its content and form are full of strong ethnic and religious color. It is a miniature of the whole Tibetan cultural customs.