Tibetan liquor culture

Tibetans have a long history and splendid culture. As early as 1000 years ago, they began to make wine, and in the long historical process, they formed a unique Tibetan wine culture.

Tibetans living on the roof of the world with majestic snow-capped mountains and vast grasslands are generous, cheerful and enthusiastic by nature; Under the influence of long-term Buddhist thought, they have developed the virtues of kindness, courtesy and frugality. Therefore, Tibetans generally love to drink, but never drink too much; I don't usually drink, but I always have to entertain myself when I drink. Wine is a festive drink for Tibetans, so it's useless to relieve boredom. Because Buddhism abstains from alcohol, alcohol cannot be used as a sacrifice among Tibetans who believe in Buddhism.

Tibetans drank many kinds of wine in ancient times. According to Bonism Funeral Ceremony, an ancient Tibetan book unearthed in Dunhuang, the wines that Tubo drank in the early days included rice wine, ale, wine, honey wine and highland barley wine. With the development of Sino-Tibetan cultural exchanges between Tang Dynasty and Fan Dynasty, Tibetans have mastered the compound fermentation brewing method introduced from the mainland, and highland barley wine brewed by imitating mainland yellow wine has been widely loved by Tibetans and has become a traditional drink of Tibetans.

In most Tibetan areas, tea is not a toast if there are guests at ordinary times. But on holidays, guests must make a toast when they go home. When making a toast, the host first fills a bowl (or cup) and presents it to the guests. After the guest takes it with both hands, he must drink three mouthfuls first, but don't drink dry. When the host fills it up again, the guest will drink it up in one gulp. After that, guests can continue to drink, and those who can't drink can't drink any more, and the host doesn't strongly advise them. If the guest doesn't finish the above drinks, it is a serious faux pas and the host will be very unhappy.

As for the drunken guests, the host will never laugh at them, but thinks it is the performance of Tancheng. Jiarong Tibetans in Sichuan are special. Usually, the guests who enter the room are first provided with a pot of wine, and then the food is put on a plate, and each guest has one. Tibetans in the Heishui area of Aba always invite acquaintances into the house to propose a bowl of wine whenever they see them passing by the door. If the guest can't enter the house, the host should take the wine to the side of the road and invite the guest to drink as comfort. The enthusiasm, kindness and friendship of the Tibetan people have been fully demonstrated in these wine customs.

Wine plays an important role in Tibetan weddings. In Amdo Tibetan area of Qinghai, you must bring "Xu Ya has a storehouse" (marriage proposal wine) when proposing marriage. If the woman agrees to get married, she must invite the elders in the village and the matchmaker to drink "engagement wine" together. Once you drink this wine, you are officially engaged and can't marry anyone else. When you get married, you should prepare a lot of highland barley wine and entertain your relatives and friends. People who welcome their loved ones will put on a "wedding banquet" on the road. The bride should drink "farewell wine" before leaving home. At the wedding reception, the host and guests drank "wedding wine", sang wine songs, danced and exulted all night, which will last for three days. During this period, the bride will take turns toasting the guests. Some wedding ceremonies in other Tibetan areas are different from this, but the role of wine is roughly the same.

Because of the influence of Buddhism, Tibetans are not extravagant about funeral, and death is only the beginning or "liberation" for Buddhists, so they are not particularly sad. The early Tibetan society believed in Bonism, believing that the soul would be separated from the original body after death, and it was necessary to use a method of descending the soul to make the soul meet the corpse. In this spiritual ceremony, wine is used in many places. After the soul-descending ceremony begins, you should offer a gourd ladle of "evocation wine" and invite the soul to descend to earth. In the process of descending, a ceremony of "offering three spoonfuls of wine" should be held. In the "combination of corpse and soul", "combined wine" will be offered three times.

Inviting free souls with wine symbolizes the attraction of a better life to souls. The status of wine here has been on an equal footing with food necessary for survival. Although there is no such ceremony in modern Tibetan funerals, alcohol is still needed: during celestial burial, the families of the deceased should drink for celestial burial professionals. At Jia Rong's Tibetan funeral, we should "drink and ask God"; At the end of the funeral, the bereaved family and the uncle's family will drink "miscellaneous wine" together, and sing wine songs in pairs to recall the life of the deceased and express their praise and regret for the deceased.

Every Tibetan family drinks highland barley wine to celebrate the Tibetan New Year. At dawn on the first day, the housewife "closed the shop" with Babao highland barley wine (a kind of wine made of brown sugar, milk residue, Ciba, walnut kernel, etc.) and gave it to everyone in the bed at home, so that they could get up after drinking it, to show that the new year was full of food and clothing and auspicious step by step. On the first day of the Tibetan Lunar New Year, guests are generally not invited. The family got together behind closed doors, drank highland barley wine and butter tea and talked a lot. After the second day of the second year, I went door to door to visit each other, saying "Tashildler" and drinking highland barley wine. Danba Tibetans in Jiarong area like to collect some wine for the Spring Festival. They get together to drink from the first day to the fifth day, burn bonfires at night, bathe in the sunshine during the day and celebrate the New Year with songs and dances.

There are many festivals in Tibet, such as Lantern Festival, Snowdon Festival in June, Fruit Watching Festival and Bathing Festival in July. In these days, people celebrate by drinking as usual. However, the most leisurely and romantic drinking days are the "mountain-climbing party" of Kangding people on April 8 and the "visiting Linka" of Lhasa people in summer and May. At that time, people helped the old and took care of the young, or the whole family, or husband and wife friends, in groups of three or five, set up white tents on the green fields and beside streams, drank newly brewed highland barley wine and butter tea, played lyre or huqin, sang songs or drank shallow songs, and were happy.

The most unrestrained time for Tibetans to drink is when they jump in the pot village. Young men and women in the village form a circle with small tables and altar highland barley wine; Men's and women's teams take turns to lead the singing and dancing, and occasionally go to the circle to drink a bowl of wine. Jump to a happy place and people who drink will flock to it. Wine helps dance, songs borrow wine, and enjoy all night.

Tibetans generally believe that tea is an indispensable diet in daily life. But among the black water Tibetans in Aba, wine is used instead of tea. Instead of drinking tea, they eat Baba and highland barley wine. Eating steamed buns without drinking boiled water or tea is to quench your thirst with wine; Baked potatoes are also eaten in wine bowls.

In many places in eastern Tibet, "drinking" is prevalent, especially the Blackwater people. Every New Year and when there are important activities at home to invite people to "drink", the host first cooks a large copper pot of water and keeps it warm by the fireplace. Then put an altar of brewed wine without water next to the fire pit of the guest table and insert two thin bamboo tubes. After all the guests arrive, please ask the oldest one to sit in front of the jar, take the lead in chanting, dip his fingers in some wine and scatter it around; Then, ask another old man to sit with him, and each person will take a bamboo tube to drink water. At this time, the master slowly infiltrated a ladle of boiling water into the jar from the ground. Boiling water permeates the bottom of the altar through fermented grains and becomes wine. The bamboo tube is inserted at the bottom of the altar, so you can only drink, but you can't inhale.

After they finished drinking, they invited two other people to drink on the altar in chronological order, and the owner continued to pour boiling water on the altar. Under normal circumstances, every two people drink a ladle of water and leave, and they are replaced by others. This goes on and on, and finally even two or three-year-old children have to drink a few drinks. After a round, start from the beginning; It was not until one jar of wine was tasteless that another jar was changed. Everyone attending the meeting, whether it is urgent or not, must have three drinks before leaving, otherwise it is very impolite.

Generally speaking, this kind of wine-drinking banquet is large in scale, ranging from 30 to 50 people to 100 people, and it can only be drunk all day. After three rounds, it often takes two or three days. In the process of drinking, those who haven't had their turn, and those who have finished drinking, will jump around the fire. I'm tired of dancing and thirsty for singing. It's time to drink some wine. After drinking, I was exhausted and energetic to jump into the pot again. Tibetan wine culture closely related to drinking, singing and dancing has been displayed here.

There are also Tibetans in Kangqu who only put a straw or bamboo tube in the jar to drink wine, and people pass the jar to their neighbors in turn. There are many straws in the jar, and several people are drinking together around the jar.

Singing wine songs is a major feature of Tibetan drinking. When toasting guests on important occasions (such as wedding banquets and country parties), you should first raise your glass and sing wine songs. Most of the lyrics are improvised, and the content is words of praise and blessing. Tibetans are good at using metaphors to express their feelings. RuKang area a wine sings:

Why is the sunshine so bright? Because the bodhisattva gave up the blessing; Why is my family so happy? It was a respectful guest who came to the counting room.

Hada is a tribute to the guru. Please try this glass of wine for my closest friend. When singing wine songs, your body should dance to the rhythm, but you must not spill the wine in the cup. Guests sometimes sing wine songs in return, and the atmosphere is very lively, pushing the banquet to * * *.

There are pots, cups and bowls for hiding wine. Jade flagons, wine glasses and bowls produced in Renxian county, Tibet, are crystal clear and are most loved by Tibetans. The Xiaolong Bowl, produced in Jingdezhen, Jiangxi Province, is painted with the pattern of "Eight Auspiciouss" or "Six-character Mantra" and is also a cherished wine set of Tibetans. In the old days, the wine vessels of nobles and toasts in Tibetan areas were very exquisite, mostly gold and silver inlaid with turquoise and coral beads, with exquisite craftsmanship.