ABSTRACT
Most experienced Tibetologists would agree that their field has been hell for statisticians but heaven for anthropologists. Indeed, Tibetology is characterized by a poverty of statistical data. One can recall only one census from pre-1950 Tibetan history, namely that of 1268, conducted by the Mongols. 1 In other words, Tibetan culture is highly literate but numerically weak. It was against the backdrop of this statistical poverty, or in the absence of any statistical tradition, that Chinese Marxists introduced and popularized the concept and practice of statistics. Not, unfortunately, as a value-neutral academic tool but essentially as a propaganda-driven means of measuring "progress" under the Communist regime. Hence, most of the statistics on contemporary Tibet are suspect for a number of reasons. The base year is not stated; there is also built-in ideological pressure at the village level, as well as a political tendency to inflate figures at the state level. This is particularly true of production and central assistance figures.
