Happy Losar – 2148 the Year of the Metal Ox

Happy Losar – 2148 the Year of the Metal Ox 
february 2021

In Tibet, various customs are associated with the New Year holiday as in a New Year’s festival, celebrated on the first day of the lunisolar Tibetan calendar, which corresponds to a date ranging from late January up to late March in the Gregorian calendar. This year it falls on 12 February 2021. The qualities of the Metal Ox Year are perseverance, balance, patience, laboriousness, liability, seriousness, sincerity, modesty, carefulness, parsimony, loyalty and love for traditions.

Losar preparation and celebration

Losar is celebrated for 15 days, with the main celebrations on the first three days. 

A month before the New Year a special kind of barley is planted in little flowerpots so that by the time New Year rolls around three-inch-high seedlings can be offered to Buddha. Families then prepare for Losar some days in advance by thoroughly cleaning their homes; decorating with fragrant flowers; painting their walls in flour with auspicious signs such as the sun, moon, or a reversed swastika; and preparing cedar, rhododendron and juniper branches as incense for burning. Debts are settled, quarrels are resolved and new clothes are acquired. 

Guthor – the last two days of the year

In English guthor means “banishing the evil spirits festival”. 

The day before New Year’s Eve, the kitchen is thoroughly cleaned because it is where the family prepares food and is considered the most important part of a house. Here, special foods are made such as kapse (fried twists) and guthuk (a form of the traditional Tibetan soup, thukpa).

On this night, families and friends gather to eat guthuk and perform the rituals for driving out all negative forces of the old year. Guthuk is made from meat, rice, sweet potatoes, wheat, yak cheese, peas, green peppers, vermicelli, and radishes, and is served with small dumplings akin to fortune cookies that contain hidden ingredients, some in the form of words on paper, all of which symbolise human qualities or the diner’s New Year fortune. 

The dumplings are not eaten but discarded after their contents are revealed. When eating guthuk, Tibetan families discuss their luck for the New Year. The atmosphere is bright and very lively.

After eating guthuk (ensuring some is left over), leftover dough is formed into an effigy representing an evil entity called lue. One member of the family carrying a lighted torch goes from room to room demanding that the spirits of the old year dwelling in nooks and corners to leave. Another person follows with a broom and sweeps the rooms, emptying the dust into a container with the leftover guthuk and the lue. In this way, our body, spirit and living spaces are cleansed of the negativities of the old year and the lue is taken outside. As the lue leaves the house, firecrackers are set off after it and the lue is commanded to take away all the obstacles and negativities of the year.  

In the Potala palace of Lhasa and other places, a grand sorcerer’s dance is held to keep away evil spirits. Monks and people in all places put on masks and clothes, imitating demons and spirits, singing, dancing, lighting firecrackers and shouting to bid farewell to the outgoing year and welcome the coming New Year.

On the second day of guthor, New Year’s Eve, religious ceremonies are performed, people visit the monastery to worship and donate money and gifts to the monks. 

Losar – first day of the new year

The new year begins on the day of a new moon that marks the first day of the first month on the Tibetan calendar. It is called Gyalpo Losar in Tibetan means “King’s New Year”. People dress up in their best clothes, greet each other and go to the monasteries to receive blessings, as the festivities last from the 1st day of the New Year until the 15th day.