Note 40 — Chapter VI · RESIDENCE AT LHASA.
Reading edition
These ragyabas of Lhasa form a guild. Persons convicted of any crime, or vagabonds, are usually sent back to their native villages, there to work out their sentence; but when the authorities cannot learn whence they come, they are handed over to the chief of the ragyabas, who receives them into his guild. Besides begging, the ragyabas cut up the corpses which are brought to the two cemeteries of Lhasa, near which they live, and feed them to vultures and dogs. A ragyaba may not show his wealth, however great it be; the walls of their houses must be made with horns of sheep, goats, or yaks, the convex sides turned upwards.40