Professional mourners are often hired for the purpose of adding to the lamentations. The coffin itself, provided with a double roof of violet silk, has in our illustration the form of a ship. The name of the departed adorns it, and it is always carried on a bier. Desert parts of the land are utilized for the burial-grounds, which are public. Every family has a grave in common, and efforts are made to bring back the bodies of those dying abroad. The memorials arc of different kinds. Cypress trees over shadow the graves (fl. 5S, fig. 2; fi/. 6o, fir. 2).
In every dwelling there is a room for the dead, where their portraits hang, and where once in the year the whole family assembles for a sort of mortuary feast. The principal feasts of the living are New Year and the Feast of Lanterns, the former taking place with much merrymaking and interchange of presents in the first month of the new year; the latter, as the feast of the full moon, in the middle of the first month, with illuminations, fireworks, etc.
TtrE T FT I 13 ETA NS.
Under this name we group the people living southward from the Karakorum Mountains to the Himalayas and throughout Thibet. They extend partly to Either India, for the inhabitants of Nepal, Sikkim, and Bootan belong to them, and they have relations in China also; for the Sefans (Thou-fan, thence the name Thibet) are of their race, which, formerly settled as far as the upper branches of the Yang-tse-Kiang and Hoang-Ho, now dwell between the Yang-tse-Kiang and Tschu-Kiang (Ya-Long), and southward to Yun-Nan. The two Scion women (p1. 1, sitting figures at the right) are from the right bank of the Yang tse-Kiang, from the district of 'l'a-Lee, and we see from these illustrations how the Thibetan races in outward appearance come very close to the races of Farther India. The transition is a very gradual one.
Piz.ivion and chief tribes of Thibet proper are the fol lowing: The IThatias, finals, the common name of the people from Rootan to Ladakh; east from Bootan live the wild Thal:has; in Sikkim the etchas (Lapka, I,eptscha, rl. 61, 41, who were originally called Romig, and have absorbed the northern Khambas during the last two hundred years; in the same locality and in East Nepal are the Liallats and the AY/wetly: in North Nepal, the Muni/is—the original inhabitants of Nepal are the compara tively highly civilized r S ; in West Nepal, the the ,lArc-ars, the Koh/is, and also the inhablianIs rfhlroorrarear, Ladakh, although these latter, like many of the others, have an intermixture of Indian blood.
Physical Characteristics.—\\Te have already spoken (p. 236) of the physi cal type of this people. We may add that with small bodies the muscles of the arms, and particularly of the legs and the breast, in breadth and prominence are highly developed on account of their living in the moun tains. Indeed, many of these races (e.g. the Murmis, the Gurungs) are so accustomed to mountain-air that they are unwilling to make any long stay below a height of six thousand feet.
Their hands and feet are surprisingly small (p1. 6x, fig. 8); heads and faces round, the latter broad, with a very broad and flat bridge of the nose, which lies in a straight line with the eyes or even deeper (pl. 61,
fig. 6). The lips are thick, the chin small, the hair mostly worn free, long, black, and bushy or waving, sometimes in locks (p1. 6i, jigs. 2, 6, 8). There is almost no beard, and such a one as the lama of Ladakh wears (p1. 6i, fig. 2) is a great rarity. The color of the skin varies from light yellow to tolerably dark brown.
Costume.—The costume of the Sefans 58, fig. 1, Gamier) is like that of the surrounding Indo-Chinese races or of the high mountain people (pl. 61, figs. 2, 3, 4, 6, 8). The knife in the belt (pl. 6i, fig. 6), the boots made of felt, and the curious felt caps of the lamas (fil. 61, figs. 2, 3), as well as the hats and hoods of straw, are characteristic. In Ladakh the women as well as the men often wear the hair in queues, which are sometimes twisted into hoops or circles standing off from the head like the halo which painters give to the saints (p1. 61, fig. 4). For weapons, besides the broad knife, they have bows and arrows, the latter sometimes poisoned.
Architecture.—In the high mountains the houses are of stone and very plain, sometimes also of twisted cane; in Sikkim they stand on piles. In the architecture of the Thibetan cities there are unmistakable marks of Chinese influence, but in their temples and religious edifices an Indian influence is apparent.
The wilder tribes interest us more, because they manifest the original character of the Thibetan people. The greater number are employed in agriculture (barley) and raising stock (sheep, goats, yaks, horses). They make fire by friction or by means of a peculiar kind of bellows; bamboo sticks serve for vessels. Tobacco is much smoked.
Social Life.—The women live very unrestrainedly before marriage, and their laxity is not considered dishonorable; the marriage tie is strict, in some places polygamous, in others polyandrous, several brothers having a wife in common, who is the property of the eldest. The woman is bought, and several of the tribes named intermarry. Inheritance goes on the woman's side.
Burials.—They burn their dead, or bury them on the summits of the mountains; they have priests and magicians, and believe in demons, of which one is credited with great power and receives special worship, but they have no temples nor idols. Animals and fruits are brought for sacrifice.
more cultivated tribes arc in a slight degree Brahmans, but mostly Buddhists, and it is known that Buddhism has its principal scat in Thibet, and its temporo-spiritual head, the Dalai-Lama, resides at Lassa. There are countless priests, unmarried and always living together in monasteries. The culture of the various Thibetan states (which are mostly independent or only nominally dependent on China) and their rather rich literature have been formed by the teachers of Buddhism, though the lamas themselves are ignorant men. In character this people, on the whole, are good-natured, friendly, honest, and true; the wilder tribes are very warlike and brave. They have good natural gifts