Mongolian shamanism
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Mongolian shamanism (Mongolian: Бөө мөргөл — Böö mörgöl), more broadly called the Mongolian folk religion,[1] or occasionally Tengerism,[2][note 2] refers to the animistic and shamanic ethnic religion that has been practiced in Mongolia and its surrounding areas (including Buryatia and Inner Mongolia) at least since the age of recorded history. In the earliest known stages it was intricately tied to all other aspects of social life and to the tribal organization of Mongolian society. Along the way, it has become influenced by and mingled with Buddhism. During the socialist years of the twentieth century, it was heavily repressed, but has since made a comeback.
Mongolian shamanism revolves around the worship of the "Tngri" (Ancestor spirits) and devotion to "Father sky" otherwise known as "Tenger" or "Qormusta Tengri" in Mongolian. In the Mongolian folk religion, Genghis Khan is considered one of the embodiments, if not the main embodiment, of the Tenger spirit.[11] The Mausoleum of Genghis Khan in Ordos City, in Inner Mongolia, is an important center of this worship tradition.
Features
Mongolian shamanism is an all-encompassing system of belief that includes medicine, religion, a reverence of nature, and ancestor worship. Central to the system are the activities of male and female intercessors between the human world and the spirit world, shamans (böö) and shamanesses (udgan). They are not the only ones to communicate with the spirit world: nobles and clan leaders also perform spiritual functions, as do commoners, although the hierarchy of Mongolian clan-based society is reflected in the manner of worship as well.[12]
Divinities and their class divisions
Klaus Hesse described the complex spiritual hierarchy in clan-based Mongolian society based on sources that go back to the 13th century. The highest group in the pantheon consists of 99 tngri (55 of them benevolent or "white" and 44 terrifying or "black"), 77 natigai or "earth-mothers", besides others. The tngri are called upon only by leaders and great shamans, and are common to all the clans. After these, three groups of ancestral spirits dominate. The "Lord-Spirits" are the souls of clan leaders to whom any member of a clan can appeal for physical or spiritual help. The "Protector-Spirits" include the souls of great shamans (ĵigari) and shamanesses (abĵiya). The "Guardian-Spirits" are made up of the souls of smaller shamans (böö) and shamanesses (udugan) and are associated with a specific locality (including mountains, rivers, etc.) in the clan's territory.[13]
The difference between great, white and small, black (in shamans, tngri, etc.) was also formative in a
Reverence for Genghis Khan
Nationwide reverence of Genghis Khan had existed until the 1930s, centered on a shrine which preserved mystical relics of Genghis, that was located in the
Within the Mongolian People's Republic (1924–92) the Mongolian native religion was suppressed, and Genghis' shrines destroyed.[15] In Inner Mongolia, otherwise, the worship of the cultural hero persisted; the hereditary custodians of the shrines survived there, preserving ancient manuscripts of ritual texts, written partially in an unintelligible language called the "language of the gods".[15]
With the establishment of the People's Republic of China, the Chinese rallied Mongol nationalism to the new state and constructed the
The shrine in Ordos has since then become the focal point of a revival of Genghis Khan's reverence throughout Inner Mongolia. The Han Chinese, the major ethnic group in Inner Mongolia, pay themselves homage to him as the spiritual foundation of the Yuan dynasty.[16] Various other temples of Genghis Khan, or branches of the shrine in Ordos, have been established in Inner Mongolia and northern China.[17][18]
Ovoo
In Inner Mongolia, the aobaoes for the worship of ancestral gods can be private shrines of an extended family or kin (people sharing the same surname), or they are communal village ones (dedicated to the deity of a village),
History
Mongolia
Various aspects of shamanism, including the tngri and their chief deity
Buddhism first entered Mongolia during the
During the Soviet domination of the Mongolian People's Republic, all varieties of shamanism were repressed; after 1991, when the era of Soviet influence was over, religion (including Buddhism and shamanism) made a comeback.[9] Recent research by anthropologists has indicated that shamanism continues to be a part of Mongolian spiritual life; Ágnes Birtalan , for instance, recorded a series of invocations and chants to the important deity Dayan Deerh in 2005 in Khövsgöl Province.[24]
In June 2017 psychology professors Richard Noll and Leonard George conducted fieldwork among Mongol shamans and posted to YouTube seven short videos of a nocturnal summer solstice (Ulaan Tergel) "fire ritual," held near midnight some 20 km (12 mi) outside Ulaanbaatar. The event was organized by Jargalsaichan, the head of the Corporate Union of Mongolian Shamans, and was closed to tourists.[25]
Buryatia
The territory of the Buryats, who live around Lake Baikal, was invaded by the Russian Empire in the seventeenth century, and came to accept Buddhism in the eighteenth century at the same time they were recognizing themselves as Mongol; to which extent Buryat shamanism mixed with Buddhism is a matter of contention among scholars. A nineteenth-century division between black and white shamanism, where black shamanism called on evil deities to bring people misfortune while white shamanism invoked good deities for happiness and prosperity, had completely changed by the twentieth century.
Today, black shamanism invokes traditional shamanic deities, whereas white shamanism invokes Buddhist deities and recites Buddhist incantations but wears black shamanist accoutrements. White shamans worship Sagaan Ubgen and Burkhan Garbal (the "Ancestral Buddha").[9] The proliferation of Buryat shamans in the 1990 to 2001 period is analyzed as an aspect of historical and genetic "search for roots" among the marginalized Buryat peoples of Mongolia, Russia and China by Ippei Shimamura.[26]
Attributes of the shamans
An important attribute for Mongolian shamans is shared with all other shamanisms of Inner Asia: the drum. Mongolian shaman drums may incorporate the shaman's ongon or ancestral spirit, as in a drum described by Carole Pegg, where the drum handle represents that ongon. The drum's skin was often made of horse skin, the drum itself standing for "the saddle animal on which the shaman rides or the mount that carries the invoked spirit to the shaman."[27]
List of movements
- Heaven's Dagger
- Mongolian Shamans' Association (Golomt Tuv)
- Circle of Tengerism (Mongolian shamanic association of America)
- Golomt Center for Shamanist Studies
- Samgaldai Center (Mongolian: Хаант Тэнгэрийн Самгалдай)
See also
- List of Tengrist movements
- Manchu shamanism
- Sami drum
- Shamanism in Siberia
- Toli (shamanism)
- Tengrism
Notes
- ^ The White Sulde is one of the two spirits of Genghis Khan (the other being the Black Sulde), represented either as his white or yellow horse or as a fierce warrior riding this horse. In its interior, the temple enshrines a statue of Genghis Khan (at the center) and four of his men on each side (the total making nine, a symbolic number in Mongolian culture). There is an altar where offerings to the godly men are made, and three white suldes made with white horse hair. From the central sulde there are strings which hold tied light blue pieces of cloth with a few white ones. The wall is covered with all the names of the Mongol kins. No photos are allowed inside the temple.
- ^ Tengrism is a broader term for the indigenous religion of Central Asia: "Julie Stewart, alias Sarangerel Odigon (1963–2006), a woman with a Mongolian (Buryat) mother and a German father, born in the United States, started to practice shamanism (or what she would refer to as 'Tengerism') as an adult; she then moved to Mongolia where she strived to restore and reconstruct the 'ancient and original' religion of the Mongolians. Among her major moves was the founding of a Mongolian Shamans' Association (Golomt Tuv), which gave Mongolian shamans a common platform and brought them into touch with shamans in other parts of the world, with the prospect of starting a shamanic world organization. Through her books, Sarangerel also spread her Mongolian message to Western audiences. She traveled widely, giving lectures and holding workshops on Mongolian shamanism. Moreover, she started a Mongolian shamanic association of America (the Circle of Tengerism)."[3][4][5]
References
Citations
- ^ Heissig 1980, p. 46; Hesse 1987, pp. 403–13.
- ^ Bira 2011; Turner 2016, ch. 9.3 Tengerism.
- ^ Schlehe 2004, pp. 283–96.
- ISBN 0415549329. p. 162.
- ^ Stewart 1997.
- ^ Shimamura 2004, pp. 649–650.
- ^ Kumar 2004.
- ^ a b Hesse 1986.
- ^ a b c d Shimamura 2004, pp. 649–51.
- ^ Pegg 2001, p. 141.
- ^ Man 2004, pp. 402–404.
- ^ Hesse 1986, p. 19.
- ^ Hesse 1987, p. 405.
- ^ Hesse 1987, pp. 405–406.
- ^ a b c d e Bawden 2013, p. [page needed]
- ^ a b Man 2004, pp. 22–23
- ^ 成吉思汗召.
- ^ 成吉思汗祠.
- ^ a b Li 2006, pp. 58–59
- ^ Pegg 2001, p. 116.
- ^ Hesse 1986, p. 18.
- OCLC 123079516.
- ^ Hesse 1987, p. 409.
- ^ Birtalan 2005.
- ^ Noll, Richard. "Mongol shamans summer solstice fire ritual". Youtube. Retrieved 2017-07-04.
- ^ Shimamura 2014.
- ^ Pegg 2001, pp. 127–28.
Sources
- Baldick, Julian (2000). Animals and shaman: ancient religions of Central Asia. New York: ISBN 9780814798720.
- Balogh, Matyas (2010). "Contemporary shamanisms in Mongolia". Asian Ethnicity. 11 (2): 229–38. S2CID 145595446.
- Bawden, C. R. (2013). Modern History Mongolia. Routledge. ASIN B00K1GW48Y.
- ISBN 9789992955932.
- Birtalan, Ágnes (2005). "An Invocation to Dayan Dērx Collected from a Darkhad Shaman's Descendant". In Kara György (ed.). The Black Master: Essays on Central Eurasia in Honor of György Kara on His 70th Birthday. ISBN 9783447051866.
- Brent, Peter (1976). The Mongol Empire: Genghis Khan: His Triumph and his Legacy. London, England: Book Club Associates.
- Bumochir, D. (2014). "Institutionalization of Mongolian shamanism: from primitivism to civilization". Asian Ethnicity. 15 (4): 473–91. S2CID 145329835.
- Charleux, Isabelle (2009). Chinggis Khan: Ancestor, Buddha or Shaman?. In Mongolian Studies: Journal of the Mongolia Society (31) pp. 207–258.
- Kumar, Nitin (10 September 2004). "Color Symbolism in Buddhist Art". Exotic India.
- ISBN 0-7103-0685-7.
- Hesse, Klaus (1986). "A Note on the Transformation of White, Black and Yellow Shamanism in the History of the Mongols". Studies in History. 2 (1): 17–30. S2CID 162239153.
- Hesse, Klaus (1987). "On the History of Mongolian Shamanism in Anthropological Perspective". Anthropos. 82 (4–6): 403–13. JSTOR 40463470.
- Humphrey, Caroline; Onon, Urgunge (1996). Shamans and Elders: Experience, Knowledge, and Power among the Daur Mongols. Oxford, England: Clarendon Press.
- Li, Xing (2006). Festivals of China's Ethnic Minorities. China Intercontinental Press. ISBN 7508509994.
- Man, John (2004). Genghis Khan: Life, Death and Resurrection. London, England: Bantam Press. ISBN 9780553814989.
- Meletinsky, Е. М. (1998). "Цаган эбуген" ["Tsagan Ubugen", Mythology, Great Russian Encyclopedia]. Мифология (in Russian) (4th ed.). Большая российская энциклопедия.
- Pegg, Carole (2001). Mongolian Music, Dance, & Oral Narrative: Performing Diverse Identities. University of Washington. ISBN 9780295981123.
- Quijada, Jastine B.; Graber, Kathryn E.; Stephen, Eric (2015). "Finding "Their Own": Revitalizing Buryat Culture Through Shamanic Practices in Ulan-Ude". Problems of Post-Communism. 62 (5): 258–72. S2CID 143106014.
- Richtsfeld, Bruno J. (2004). "Rezente ostmongolische Schöpfungs-, Ursprungs- und Weltkatastrophenerzählungen und ihre innerasiatischen Motiv- und Sujetparallelen". Münchner Beiträge zur Völkerkunde. Jahrbuch des Staatlichen Museums für Völkerkunde München (in German). Vol. 9. pp. 225–74.
- Roux, Jean-Paul, ed. (1984). La religion des Turcs et des Mongols [The Religion of the Turks and Mongols] (in French). Paris: Payot.
- Schlehe, Judith (2004). "Shamanism in Mongolia and in New Age Movements". In Rasuly-Paleczek, Gabriele (ed.). Central Asia on Display: Proceedings of the VIIth Conference of the European Society for Central Asian Studies. Vol. 1. Vienna: Lit Verlag. pp. 283–96. ISBN 3-8258-8309-4.
- ISBN 9781576076453. Archived from the originalon 2014-07-15.
- ISBN 978-4-86110-397-1.
- The Secret History of the Mongols: a Mongolian Epic Chronicle of the Thirteenth Century. Inner Asian library. Vol. 1–2. Translated by ISBN 978-90-04-15363-9.
- Turner, Kevin (2016). Sky Shamans of Mongolia: Meetings with Remarkable Healers. Berkeley, Ca: North Atlantic Books. ISBN 9781583946343.
External links
- Circle of Tengerism (Mongolian shamanic association of America) — official website (in English)
- Samgaldai Center — official website of a charitable, non-for-profit NGO for preserving Mongolian traditional Shamanic practices and rituals, operating in Mongolia (in Mongolian and English)
- Shamans' religion organization "Tengeri" — official website (in Russian)
- Stewart, Julie (1997-10-03). "A Course in Mongolian Shamanism—Introduction 101". Ulaanbaatar: Golomt Center for Shamanist Studies. Retrieved 2019-12-15.