Stags are bomb dot com, even in Tibet

Backtrack to Friday. We woke up really early and went to the Sherab Ling monastery, which is about an hour and a half away, to watch a ritual dance where monks become gods and then vanquish an evil spirit in effigy to protect everyone for the coming new year.

We got there, there was some type of warm up act (of course) and we had tea and capse (obviously) and then they began. They rolled out huge statues of the protector deities, and then little monks in costumes ran around, then the big processional began. All the gods you see below came out two at a time and danced. Finally each of them used a weapon on the spirit (shown below).

Their costumes are ABSOLUTELY beautiful. There were probably thirty of them dancing around the room.

Then the STAG came out to dance around.

(video upload)

Finally, he killed the weakened evil spirit. I showed the video to my host dad, who said that we clearly didn't have an expert stag dancer, but third time's the charm. He took a long time to kill the spirit. Skip to around 2:30 in the video.

(sidenote: there is supposed to be another video here, but it's taking FOREVER and a half and I can't sit here anymore because I don't even have April to talk to anymore. If you're in Europe this is a great time to talk to me.)


Then the monks put katas on all of the gods and the statues and eventually all the gods had a backwards processional back into their lair. The whole thing was really moving and the air was electric. My favorite parts were all of the dancing (so energetic!) and the horn after the stag finally destroyed the spirit. Those horns have an AWESOME sound. I also have some close up pictures of the costumes and stuff but I don't want to break the internet. 

Losar: seriously, these photos will clog your arteries

Wind horse with sacred jewels on its back. I have more but I don't want to give anyone a heart attack.

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Losar: so much butter

I don't know what this is but it falls under the category of awesome

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Losar: even more butter

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Losar: more butter

A protector deity riding a wind horse

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Losar two: butter!

Part of losar is that you eat and drink a ton. Everyone offers you capse and chang and whiskey and sweet rice with dried fruit and indian sweets. To counteract all the eating, Stephen, Liz, and I did Kora around the temple, and then went upstairs to see the big butter sculptures.

They're huge. And made entirely by hand by monks. It's insane, and insanely beautiful.

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Losar 1

It is super difficult to explain losar, but I have a bunch of pictures so I can try. This is me inside the main temple standing in front of all the offerings. Traditionally before Tibet became a Buddhist society farmer's losar contained animal sacrifice. Buddhists use capse instead and make different ones to look like different parts of the animal. The pile is called donkey ears, and there are ones made to look like intestines and small ones that look like hearts go on top.

To the right is a huge butter sculpture, and then a table with food offerings to the deities.

The first day of losar I got woken up by people outside screaming losar tashi delek! And shooting off fireworks. We went back to sleep until six, when we then got woken up to drink chang, or rice beer. Everyone had chang except for nima, the 8 year old cousin.

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Sonam!

I got to see Sonam (and her little sister) over losar which was a lot of fun. This is us on linkor (the large Kora that goes around the temple and the Dalai Lama's home).

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Gootook and dough

Pause in cham programming (I have a lot more photos and videos) before I forget this.

This is the traditional losar eve eve (there are two days of eves) tookpa (soup). There are nine ingredients (auspicious number). The dough ball at the middle contains something like a fortune for the new year slash a personality evaluation.

You are traditionally supposed to eat nine bowls, and there is a saying that if you die eating gootook it's ok. (This Doesn't translate well, but it means it's very good. And your rebirth will be good if you die gorging yourself. I think.) Because of the size amala gave us nine ladles instead, which is a crazy amount so kahtook the dog helped me finish mine.

As for the dough balls, Dawa had cotton in his, which means he's a soft boy. Amala and pala both got coal, which means they have black hearts. And me? I got a chili, which means I am firey, or, literally, "have fire coming out of my mouth."

Pala asked if I say "hot things." You win, Losar dough ball. You win.

I can't tell if they are supposed to be joking predictions for the next year or not, because it's also possible to get a sun or stars, which means your future is bright, something that means you're difficult to deal with, or scripture, which symbolizes wisdom.

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Nya capse supa yin

The title translates roughly to i made capse (don't quote me on that)! Capse, pronounced cahp- say and spelled ka- se, is fried Tibetan bread that you make for losar, the new year. Creck, ape, elena, I miss you.

Yesterday and today we rolled out dough, cut it up, and made crazy designs. Making capse is so much fun. So much fun that we were late to class. The bread gets fried in a huge vat of oil. It is fab. There are fancy ones for the altar and simpler ones for eating. There are some you make by hand and others where you pour the batter directly into hot oil with a pastry bag. Those look like boardwalk food. The photo above is of Liz and our Tibetan teacher Tasha Sonam rolling dough. The good photos are still on Liz's camera, and I have to wait to jerryrig it onto the blog. (Many Things in India only work if you jerryrig them.)

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