The Colfax chronicle., 1888-11-17
THI-BEIT WANG TSUE:
OF. the 'Dwellers on the Roof of
the World"
Domething About This Extraordinary Peo
ple-Their Peculiar Manners, Gus
toms and Religious Rites
The Delai Lamss.


This extraordinary people, the Thi-
belt Wang Tsue, owe their nationality
to princely Chinese rebel, who on ac-
count Of some court intrigue took
refuge with his family among those
mountainous regions now called Thibet.
Establishing himself on the Yarling
river, he gathered to his standard the
wild, hairy, mountain-cave dwellers of
this lofty plateau. With the Khuenlun
Mountains on the north and the mighty
Himalayas on the south, Wong Chou
felt himself finvincible and impregnable;
and 30 It proved, for this settlement Of
savages hourished, and in course Of
time developed one Of the strangest
civilizations In the world.
In order to understand this people.
their manners, customs and religious
rites, we must glance at their country.
It is the loftiest plateau on the globe,
girt with steep barriers and with ex-
tremes of temperature, in some parts
freezing eveW night. even in summer,
willie in others the noon sun Is more
fierce and scorching than in the hot
test regions of Hindostan. From its
lofty table-land descend some Of the
greatest rivers Of Asia, the Indus, the
Brahmapootra. the Irrawady, the Gam
gee, the Hohang-ho. At their sources
mountains pile upon mountains, some
bare and volcanic, others covered with
primeval forests, frightfully tangled
together with huge creepers, as yet
unnamed by the botanist. The highest
peaks soar In awful grandeur, vap0r-
crowned and snow-clad, assuming in
the rising and setting sun forms Of un-
speaxable splendor. The annual trans
formations OF this land of mountain
and valley are magical; evergreens,
ferns, lichens, MOSES, thousands OF
mountain rills, and myriads of flowers
all 1t with music, fragrance and dewy
beauty; in winter storms, darkness,
heavy mists and terrifying silence en-
wrap the land-now and then this awful
silence is broken by avalanches of ice
and snow, laundering and booming
down the mountains as with the roar.
ing OF distant cannon. And above all
when night comes on, there is nowhere
land 90 weird; it is full Of milky
vapors of serpentine form, of shades
and phantoms, inspiring in the minds
Of its inhabitants sense Of awe
mystery and sublimity. II Is no
strange that the dwellers on the Roo
of the World" should be what they ar,
the most superstitious, reverential
religious and credulous people on th'
face of the earth.
Nowhere, as in Thibet, does Buddh
ism and It's mysterious doctrine OF tn
transmigration of souls hold sway q
absolute. The mountain caves ar
filed with male and female ascetics
who practice the most austereforms o
penance. abstinence and self-t0rture
In order to work out their dedication
In what was once the lair of viii,
beasts, live Thibetian maidens, who 10
years scourge themselves with bruises
sanctify themselve., by continual fasts
prayers and piousI meditations, in tn
hope that they ma become mothers I
future Delai Lamds; here are convent
and monasteries without end, temple.
shrines and pagod(s without number
filled with pilgrims, saints, sages, ms
gicians, rahats (saints in the yariou
stages Of deification), arahsts, bot
male and female. Here Is enshrine
the great Delai Lama himself, the lates
living incarnation Of the Buddha, b
lieved in as veritable man-god. pur,
4infallible, omnipresent and omniscien
who is worshiped with the mo-
sumptuous of pagan rituals morning
noon and night rs heavenly deit.
while ON every conspicuous rock an
towering peak is cut In huge Thibetis
&. ohxracters the mystical and symbol
prayer offered to this strange man-deit
sS0m Manni Pndmih Hon."
AMID this grand scenery and the
6ox1nee ideas Of human dedication,
Ihibetian village makes but mes
16xenoa he houses are aiik