Eric's Beijing Diary

I attended the sky burial this morning. The sky burial has been incorporated into Tibetan Buddhism, but it is actually rooted in the Tibetan native religion. At the sky burial, they keep you several hundred meters from the site, so you can't really see much (which is probably good), but one of the local Tibetans, who has been performing sky burials since he was twelve years old described the process to me.

First they take the corpse and hack it in pieces. Then they cut the flesh from the bones, so that the vultures can eat it. Here in Langmusi, I don't think they are actually removing all the flesh, just cutting it so it will be easier for the vultures. Then they pulverize the bones and mix it with a local grain mash that the birds like to eat. We were not able to see this process up close. But when they lit the smoke to signal to the birds, we could see the vultures beginning to circle. Because I came when they were doing an actual sky burial, I was not able to get up to the actual site (again, probably a good thing). But I met a guy later who had been up there before they started. He described what he saw...a couple cadavers (probably brought from far away and too old for the vultures), along with extraneous body parts. I asked the local guy why they don't just bury the body. He said, "Because we are afraid the spirit will not be able to get out."

On a lighter note, I had an interesting discussion with another local Tibetan. I saw a yak in the back of a truck and I was talking about it with him. He said,

"That's not a yak."

"Yes it is. That is definitely a yak." (Can you imagine me arguing with a Tibetan about what a yak is?)

"No, it's not a yak."

"I know what a yak looks like; this is a yak (didn't tell him I had never seen a yak before I came to this town)."

"It's not a yak. A yak looks different."

"If it's not a yak, what is it?"

"It's a zhe."

"What's a zhe?"

"The female. The yak is the male."

"Well, in English, a yak is a yak is a yak."

Turns out the English word "yak" comes from the Tibetan word for the male of the species.