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The Sky Burial July 29, 2008

Posted by dodo in : Destination, Library, Memorial, Museum, Restaurant, Tour , trackback

Six AM. I wake before the alarm, filled with apprehension. I had resisted attending the sky burial. However, I know that experiencing such a unique, ancient ritual is the essence of travelling. If I avoid it, I might as well be on a tourist bus, shielded from Tibet and from myself.

Pascal, Doune and I begin the hour-long walk out of L’hassa. We pick our way through a rubbish dump and climb to the burial site, a stubbly patch on top of a rocky hill, surrounded by desolate bare mountains, looking like wrinkled old elephants’ hide. Five Tibetan men and a boy of about ten, dressed in worn jackets and trousers, are seated around a fire, drinking tea, talking and laughing. They smile welcome. Nearby is the altar rock where the burial is to take place, a large flat rock with bowl-like depressions, separated by a gully which is strewn with discarded clothing and hanks of hair. We sit by the edge of the gully facing the altar rock. Pascal gestures toward the mountains. I look up. Rows of large silent birds are perched on the mountain ledges — vultures.

Their colours blend with the mountains. Ravens swoop in the gully and gather nervously in black clumps on the altar rock. A white square bundle, tied with rope, sits among the ravens. A small dog struggles up the rock and chases them. The rising sun slowly turns the drab greys and dull browns of the mountains to patches of pale gold and dusty pinks. It becomes warmer. About fifteen Westerners trickle in. No Chinese. In the past some have jeered at the burial procedure. Now Tibetans stone them. Westerners still seem welcome, though they too have created “incidents”. Several days ago an Australian, desperate to capture the sky burial on film, although Tibetans forbid photographing, hid behind some rocks. He was discovered and chased. Next day Westerners were stoned. Yesterday several filtered back. Today we are greeted with smiles. Tibetans are wonderfully tolerant and forgiving. Still, I feel certain our days at the burial site are numbered.

Travel GuidebookA little after eight o’clock the sun touches the altar rock, the signal for the burial to begin. One of the men dons a grubby white coat and a surgical-type cap. He says something in Tibetan. Someone translates:

“While we work, no pictures.” The man in white, two other men and the boy, climb onto the rock. The remaining two Tibetans, relatives of the deceased, sit by the fire. The man in white is thin and wiry with flashing black eyes and black hair sticking out from under the cap, wild looking. He unties the bundle. A woman, naked except for an unbuttoned faded red blouse, tumbles out. She looks pregnant, youngish, with long black hair. (Later we learn that her body was carried a long distance on someone’s back, for there are only a few places in Tibet where sky burials are performed.) The man in white drags her body over the rock and lays it face down in the centre. He begins without ceremony by pulling off the blouse and flinging it in the gully. He pulls a large knife from his belt, and with surgical precision cuts a slit down her spine.

Starting from the shoulder blade he strips the flesh down the left side of her back, using swastika-patterned cuts. (For Tibetans the swastika is the symbol of the wheel of life.) This done, he neatly hacks off her left arm and tosses it to the young boy, who, squatting on his haunches, pounds it to a pulp with the back of an axe. He grunts and groans with the effort. The man in white continues to hack the left side of the body, panting loudly like someone chopping wood. The two men, also squatting, are thrown flesh and bones which they pound in the bowl-like depressions. The sounds of panting and puffing combine with those of flesh being pulverised and bones being smashed. Tzampa, a mixture of barley flour, tea and yak butter, is added to the flesh and bones to make a paste. Everything happens quickly. The men work with practised skill, pausing only to sharpen their axes or for a short cigarette break.

The woman’s right side is begun, the flesh sliced expertly from the ribs. The man’s white coat becomes splattered with blood. By now the rock looks like a butcher’s shop, bloody with tattered flesh and strewn limbs, and the woman like a butchered carcass. I turn away many times, unable to watch, then am drawn back, unable not to watch. The butcher flips over what remains of the body, a torso with no back or limbs. He chops hard through the chest cavity and reaches inside to pull out the heart.

Holding it up, he shouts something to the two Tibetans by the fire. They nod. He chops the heart to bits. Then the stomach is slit open and the organs removed. These are cut up and kept separately. The work is easier now. While they work, the men talk and joke. The Westerners are silent. Lastly, the head is separated from the neck with one precise blow. The butcher holds the head by the hair and deftly scalps it, then, tying the long black hair into a knot, he tosses it into the gully. Next he picks up a large flat stone and, holding it overhead, mutters a prayer and smashes the skull, twice. One of the seated men brings tea to the rock. An old man dressed in traditional clothes appears and, facing the rock, says a prayer and prostrates himself.

At this point the butcher, turning to the vultures, calls: “Shoo .. . Tzshoo . . .” At the signal about a dozen vultures, the vanguard, leave the mountains and swoop onto the rock. The butcher throws them bits of flesh as they gather around him. They are huge beautiful birds with white necks and legs, and speckled tan and white bodies. Their wings flutter and spread to reveal white undersides and dark brown tips. Some are so close that we can see their bright blue eyes. The boy bundles the chopped organs into a cloth. Several vultures try to steal bits of flesh from the boy. The butcher chases them off the rock with kicks and abusive shouts, as though punishing them for bad behaviour. The boy carries the bundle off the rock, the two men accompany him.

Then the butcher, facing the mountains, addresses the vultures in a shrill sing-song voice, calling, “Tria … soya . . . tria . . .” Suddenly hundreds of birds fill the sky, hover in a quivering cloud above our heads, their wings beating a nervous fluttering sound, and descend on the rock, completely covering it. As the vultures vie for space, the ravens cling to the edges. The butcher serves the preparation of flesh, bones and tzampa. The tzampa has been added to make the mixture more palatable, for it is a bad omen if anything is left uneaten. The vultures eat greedily, fighting over scraps, slipping off the rock in their haste to consume. The ravens, uninvited guests, must be content to scramble at the outer edges, snapping up any morsels the vultures accidentally drop.

At this point several Westerners attempt to photograph the vultures. The butcher becomes incensed. Leaping off the rock, he rushes at two German girls, brandishing his knife and shouting. He points the knife at the heart of one of the girls. Livid with ,rage, he grabs their cameras and rips the film from them, tearing it to shreds and throwing it in the fire. The other cameras are quickly hidden.

The birds finish eating but do not leave the rock. They flutter about nervously in staccato hops. I wonder why they linger. The answer comes quickly. The bundle of organs is returned to the rock. They have been waiting for these choice morsels — dessert. They voraciously consume every last bit. Finally the feast is over. The vultures take to the sky bearing the deceased with them, upwards to the heavens. The rock is empty. An hour ago there was a body on the rock; now there is nothing. The butcher sits with the other Tibetans around the fire in animated discussion. There is no sign of mourning, no tears, no wailing, no prayers. Except for the two men, there are no family or friends present. Attending a sky burial for a Tibetan must be the equivalent of going to the morgue for a Westerner.

Two men climb the rock to check that all has been eaten and to clean it for the next burial. I sit too stunned to move. This has been the strangest, the most bizarre thing I have ever witnessed. Powerful images rage through my brain. What amazes me is that, in spite of the horrific nature of what I have seen, I feel neither repulsion nor revulsion. One reason must be the inevitable distancing of oneself from the intensity and nearness of the experience. But more important is a feeling that the sky burial fits in with the isolation and strangeness of the setting. In that alien environment, somehow it all makes sense. I am the last one to leave.

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