Farming & Ranching in Tibet, 1920s
"Tibet lives by farming and ranching. Apart from the great priesthood these are the main occupations of our people..."
Note: This article has been excerpted from a larger work in the public domain and shared here due to its historical value. It may contain outdated ideas and language that do not reflect TOTA’s opinions and beliefs.
From We Tibetans: An Intimate Picture, by a Woman of Tibet, of an Interesting and Distinctive People, by Rin-Chen Lha-Mo, 1926.
Farming and Ranching
Tibet lives by farming and ranching. Apart from the great priesthood these are the main occupations of our people. The life of the farmer is more comfortable than that of the tent-dweller, for he lives in a house and in the warm valleys. But he has more work to do, he is the busier man of the two. We have a saying that after dinner the tent-dweller reclines at ease, the farmer builds his house. It illustrates the relative difference between them but from your point of view both have an easy life. There is none of that stress and strain and drudgery I have seen on all sides since I left my country. Our lands are wide and our people few, and there is room to spare, and food and clothing within easy reach of everybody. No one need go in want of the necessities of life, nor need anyone labour without cess just to get a bare subsistence.
The farmers live in the valleys. We call them Rongpa or people of the valleys. The tent-dwellers occupy any country not used for agriculture. Most of them live on the great grass-lands, while some pitch their tents and graze their cattle on the mountain slopes in the neighbourhood of tilled lands.
Farmer and tent-dweller live in close touch with each other. They supply each other’s wants, exchanging their produce. Nearly all the farmers keep some cattle but they depend for their main supply of meat and butter and cheese and skins on the tent-dwellers. The latter on the other hand do not till the soil, and so they depend on the farmers for their cereals.
The tent-dweller, whom we call Drokpa, meaning people of the pasture lands, does not wander on indefinitely in space and time. He has his centre which is his winter head-quarters, chosen by himself or by his fathers before him, some sheltered fold in the downs, where he spends, year after year, the winter months. Some winter camps consist of stone huts. Others, the great majority of them all, of low stone or argol walls inside which the drokpa pitches his tent. These walls shelter the tent against the winter winds.
In summer the drokpa is constantly on the move, making a wide circle round his winter centre. He shifts camp frequently to give his cattle their fill of the rich summer grass.
Some nomad camps consist of but a single tent, others arc of two or three, some have a score or more. The larger camps may have thousands of cattle, while a small camp will have a hundred or less.
The animals are oxen and cows and sheep and horses. The Tibetan ox, what you call the yak, is a strong and heavy animal, with high withers, broad back, big horns, long hairy coat and bushy tail. The male we call Ya, the female Dri. You have one of each in your London Zoological Gardens, but they do not seem to be very good ones, they look sorry for themselves, perhaps they feel the want of wide spaces.
The cows are Chinese, not Tibetan. The male we term Lung-pi, the female Pa-mu. You will find a few Pa-mu on the farms, but rarely in the nomad camps. But almost every camp has a Lung-pi. These latter are used to produce a cross with the Dri. The male offspring of this cross we call Dzo, the female Dzu-mo. The Dzo is better than the Ya, being more docile and having greater strength and endurance. It is thus more valuable for transport and farm work. The Dzu-mo is superior to the Dri, giving more milk. The Dzo is our chief beast of burden, the Dzu-mo our chief milch-cow.
The cross is not usually carried beyond one generation. The young born of the crossbreds are called A-ko. They are usually killed, partly because the Dzu-mo is a milch-cow and partly because the A-ko is considered a perverse creature. We have a saying that when the Dzo go up into the mountain the A-ko come down, indicating the contrariety of the latter. This saying is applied with the same meaning to perverse people. Another saying applicable to contrary people is "told to fetch fathers hat, brings mother’s boots.” Some farmers do allow the A-ko to grow up, but seldom if ever do the drokpa permit theirs. The drokpa kills the young A-ko immediately, for it is considered to bring ill-luck to the herd. We have a saying that the A-ko brings ill-luck, the A-ko’s offspring complete ruin.
We have many tales which point a moral. Here is one of them, a story of a Tso-lung or Lake-bull. This animal lives unseen in the lakes. You will say that it does not exist, that it is a mythical creature. Do your fairies exist? Some of you seem to think so. I am told that some even claim to have taken photographs of fairies, disporting themselves in grove and meadow.
Our people believe the Tso-lung to exist, but it does not matter to my tale whether they exist or not, for the tale is allegorical.
Ordinarily the Tso-lung is never seen, but tradition has it that one of them once appeared in my own region and openly joined a herd. It looked just like an ordinary Lung-pi. The great Ya attacked the stranger, but he was too much for them, he killed one after another of them. The drokpa got angry, but was himself afraid of the intruder, so he thought of a way of killing him without exposing himself to danger. He tied knives to the horns of one of his Ya and set it on to the Tso-lung. They fought and the knives entered the lake-bull's side. Mortally wounded he leapt into the lake, and the waters rose in a great wave and drew the drokpa and his tent and all his herd into the lake, and the Iake dried up. It was found it had burst a great hole in its bed.
A new and smaller lake formed itself on the other side of the range of mountains, and there some of the drokpa's household utensils were found. The waters of the lake had escaped through the fissure in the lake-bed and had penetrated the range to reassemble on the other side of it.
I know you will say what happened was a volcanic disturbance, but we look upon it like this. The Tso-lung was a gift from Heaven and the drokpa should have accepted it in gratitude and reverence, for he was favoured above all others. But he rejected the gift, killed the Tso-lung and Heaven punished him. The gifts of Heaven must not be abused. You might apply the moral to yourselves, for you have been given more wonderful things than the Tso-lung.
Lha-Mo, Rin-Chen. We Tibetans: An Intimate Picture, by a Woman of Tibet, of an Interesting and Distinctive People. Seeley Service & Co. 1926.
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