| dc.description.abstract | My thesis focuses on Tibetan marriage, the courtship, the marriage ceremony and particularly the songs sung during the initial stages of a marriage and during the actual marriage ceremony. Since Tibet weddings in general and different forms of marriage in particular (such as polygamy), have already been studied by some scholars, I focus on the marriage ceremonies typical in villages in Central Tibet, and particularly I have studied the songs. Only a few scholars have collected marriage songs from Central Tibet, and these songs are rapidly disappearing due to modernization. The main research questions I ask in my thesis are: In what ways have marriage in the Central Tibetan countryside traditionally been arranged? How does the selection of spouses proceed? How are engagement ceremonies and marriage ceremonies carried out? The emphasis, however, is on the speeches, songs and dances carried out during different parts of the wedding proceedings. I mainly portray wedding customs in the Central Tibet. I describe stages of courtship, the engagement, the roles of the matchmaker and the maternal uncle and describe the wedding day, the songs and speeches given, the sending and receiving of the bride, and the wedding ceremony. Since I’m particularly interested in the songs and speeches, I have selected a number of them from textual sources, and these I translate and annotate.
In my thesis, Part 1, I introduce my work by giving general information about Tibetan marriage. I write about the primary and secondary sources in Tibetan and in other languages, I state the principal objectives of the study, and the research methods. In Part 2, I write about the genre of marriage songs. Part 3 deals with spouse selection, astrological calculation, arranged marriages and divorce. In Part 4, I write about engagement, the beer-asking day, the wedding contract, the wedding preparations, the wedding day and bringing the bride home, the sending-off ceremony and the three greetings, and how weddings are dissolved. After each section I introduce speeches and songs that belong to the section of the marriage that I describe. The songs are given in transliteration (the Wylie system), followed by a translation into English. The songs contain many references to Buddhism, to different countries, to ancient Tibetan myths and to nature. There are also many local terms difficult to find in any dictionary. Wherever necessary I add notes in the translation in order to explain the references and the content of the songs. | nor |