IDNO

P.97088.WIL

Description

On Cech’s list describing prints:
“(136-150 where taken en route for Gyantse)
136. “Crossing the Tobing Chu in yak-skin boats at Tri-sam, 8 miles from Lhasa”
See gi: Tobing Chu, Tri-sam
136a/b/c. Coracles on the river.” [printed text]
For more information see Cech’s list.

Four Ku-Dru or Kowa (yak-skin boat) carrying groups of people crossing the Tobing Chu, eight miles west of Lhasa. One boat has reached the far river bank, and beside the landed boat is a large group of people standing. Hills are in the distance. [JD 24/4/2009]

Place

C Asia; Tibet; near Lhasa; Tobing Chu; Trisam

Cultural Affliation

Named Person

Photographer

Williamson, Frederick

Collector / Expedition

Date

4 October 1933

Collection Name

Williamson Collection

Source

Williamson, Margaret

Format

Print Black & White

Primary Documentation

Other Information

Transcription: The transcription of this album by Mark Turin and Sara Shneiderman was carried out with reference to Krystina Cech’s catalogue list alone. Alex Nadin has since revised their cataloguing by systematically matching their records to the images. Margaret Williamson’s handwritten captions for photographs have now been transcribed into the Inscription field, and Cech’s descriptions appear in the Description field. Correct entries for Place, Named Person and Other Nos. have also been entered by Alex Nadin. [Sudeshna Guha 29/10/2002]

Publication: The ferry place is mentioned in Williamson, Margaret, 1987. Memoirs of a Political Officer’s Wife (Wisdom Publication, London), p. 93:
“We moved on the Trisam ferry, where we found a fine Tibetan tent pitched and chang prepared for us. There should have been a bridge there but it had been swept away by floods the month before. While we paused for rest and refreshment, the transport animals were unloaded and sent swimming across the river. Later, having taken photographs, we followed in yak-skin boats.” [JD 13/5/2008]

Place: Trisam is located approximately 7 miles from Lhasa where the Tolung River where it meets the Kyichu. The site is now the location of the first iron bridge in Tibet that was constructed between 1936 and 1938. Hugh Richardson noted “Trisam sampa = Trisam bridge; iron bridge over the Tolung river where it meets the Kyichu. Tsarong and a monk plus Jigmey Taring built it." [Hugh Richardson in conversation with Roger Croston, detailed in H. Staunton undated Related Documents File, PRM Manuscript Collections] [Jocelyne Dudding 12/5/2008]

Place: “The Tobing Chu [is] the chief river of the Tolung valley system [and] joins the Kyichu 12 km to the west of Lhasa.” [Source: www.keithdowman.net/books/ppct.htm]

Context: The Ku-Dru or Kowa of Tibet is very similar to the corracle. “Each craft is made of about four yak-skins sewn together with thongs and stretched over a willow frame steered by a paddle at the rear.” [Source: Cech’s notes, Jocelyne Dudding 12/5/2008]

This catalogue record has been updated with the support of the Williamson Trust. [Jocelyne Dudding 24/4/2009]