Tibet sets "Serfs Emancipation Day"

DARK ERA

Gaisang's story is hardly exceptional.

According to Gaisang Yeshes, former head of the Tibetan Press of Ancient Books and a sociologist with the Tibetan Academy of Social Sciences, serfdom developed before the Yuan Dynasty (AD 1271-1368).

Serfdom was formalized after the hierarchic social system characterized by theocracy was established in the 13th century, when the Yuan Dynasty delegated Tibetan religious leaders to administer the region. The system was further developed after the Dalai Lama became the paramount leader of Tibet.

Serfs, who accounted for more than 90 percent of the population of old Tibet, were treated as private property by their owners, including the family of the Dalai Lama. The latter owned some 80 percent of production materials -- farm land, pastures and livestock.

Serfs were classified into three categories in accordance with their possessions -- tralpa, Duchung and Nangsan.

Landowners included aristocrats, monasteries and government officials. An exhibition by the Museum of Tibet showed that they owned 24 percent, 36.8 percent and 28.9 percent, respectively, of the arable land in the plateau region before 1959.

Landowners could legally insult, punish, buy and sell, give away, whip and even brutally kill their serfs.

In 1733, the 7th Dalai Lama controlled 3,150 monasteries and 121,440 households, and serfs had to work for the monasteries despite lack of enough food and proper clothing.

Saixim Village, Doilungdeqen County, 50 km northwest of Lhasa, was a manor of the 14th Dalai Lama's family before 1959. Older villagers can still recall that five people were beaten to death and 11 injured in the service of the Dalai Lama's family during a 10-year period.