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Serfdom and Mobility: An Examination of the Institution of “Human Lease” in Traditional Tibetan Society

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 March 2011

Melvyn C. Goldstein
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Abstract

Serfdom was pervasive in Tibet and all laymen with the exception of a few hundred aristocratic families were hereditary serfs, tied to a lord through an estate. Nonetheless, the Tibetan social system was not rigid and closed. There was a significant modicum of mobility although mobility only between various serf substatuses.

The article examines the nature of the major serf sub-statuses and particularly focuses on the status of “human lease.” In a sense analagous to leasing land, the human-lease serf leased his personal freedom of movement and livelihood from his lord and was no longer obligated to work his lord's estate. But he was still a serf. He still had to pay an annual “lease” fee to his lord, and moreover, this linkage to his lord was still passed on to his offspring. The most striking feature of traditional Tibetan social structure emerges not as rigidity or flexibility but rather as the incorporation of a significant potential for mobility with a matrix of pervasive and hereditary serfdom. The institution of human lease reinforced the ideology underlying the estate system while providing the system the flexibility it needed to adapt to changing political and economic conditions.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Asian Studies , Volume 30 , Issue 3 , May 1971 , pp. 521 - 534
Copyright
Copyright © The Association for Asian Studies, Inc. 1971

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References

1 Tibetan terms will be transcribed according to the system cited by ProfessorWylie, Turrell V. in “A Standard System of Tibetan Transcription,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, 22 (1959), 261–67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 Bergel, Egon E., Social Stratification (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1962), p. 76.Google Scholar

3 See the section concerning the new policy of the Agricultural Office on p. 533 for the change that occurred in this century.

4 There was considerable variation in terminology between different regions and dialects and the terms cited above are those that were widespread throughout central Tibet.

Note should also be made that even in particular localities a variety of names sometimes were used with the different terms connoting a level of respect, e.g., in one area in Tsang the usual term was dud chung. However, there was also die more respectful term snying chung and the more pejorative term kyang kyang or mo rang pa.

5 Personal communication, May 1969.

6 The type of corvée taxes listed above were characteristic of “taxpayer” serfs in general and the government ones in particular. The “bound” dud chung serfs, in contrast, were primarily obligated to work their lord's demesne lands. They were organized into tax units (rkang) either on the basis of the size of their land holdings or on a set number of people (mi rtsis). From these units the lord could demand the labor of usually one, but at peak labor times two and even three, persons to work his demesne fields. Although there was great variation regarding this, three persons typically comprised such tax units. The life of these serfs was generally considered to be the hardest, and this aspect of tradition Tibetan social organization will be dealt with in a separate essay.

However, for a more detailed discussion of taxtion and village structure in a “government taxpayer” village, I refer the reader to Melvyn C. Goldstein, “Taxation and the Structure of a Tibetan Village,” Central Asiatic Journal, in press.

7 From 1757 to 1895 the position of ruler was actually held by Regents. Even when a Dalai Lama like the Eighth managed to reach majority age, a Regent was retained who carried out secular affairs.