By an ethnographic work of Dechen Tibetans in northwest Yunnan, China, this essay aims to unfold three basic types of property in Tibetan societies. First, properties the warriors consume mainly in gambling, bullfighting, archery, and other competitions. Secondly, the properties of the priests are divided into oblations offered to Buddhist temples and fortunes used for sacrifices in the House. Thirdly, the producers are accordingly engaged in a triple production, and besides the priests` and the warriors` possession, only the remaining portion is then at the disposal of the producers. The above three hierarchies of properties are presented totally inside the house and correspond to the three religious orientations and property ideas of the local society. Among Tibetans, the warriors` religion draws on the "La-rtse" rituals focused on the cult of the mountain gods. Furthermore, only properties that the warriors consumed in competitions and banquets, and res mancipi of the warriors should attribute to "the gifts" contributed by classical anthropologists such as Malinowski and Mauss. Tibetan Buddhism, the religion of the priests, has been economically supporting by the local people, and properties of the temples are typically what C.A. Gregory and Annette B. Weiner call "inalienable possessions ". The religion of the producers could be typified by the witchcraft of the poison-god (duk lha) which embodies a dominant idea of property based on fertility. Anthropologists have endeavored to examine the comparative potential of “the gift” in Buddhist societies, hitherto, no one has reconsidered this theme through the angle of social hierarchies. Musing on the relation between these three basic types of properties, this essay draws attention to engagements with the restoration of the gifts to the question of property rights and will highlight how the central mechanisms of different types of properties contribute to the reproduction of Tibetan Buddhist societies.
