Hoorah!
edit July, 1st: 4 packages!! friendmade lady gaga shirt!
edit 2 July, 6th: +2 beautiful letters from texas!!
Monday, June 28, 2010
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
My friend, fellow sociologist, and fellow paranoid: Introducing Elle Jhe
I've invited my friend Elle Jhe to be a contributor to this blog which I am very excited about, here is ze's first contribution:
Driving and the Downfall of Society
This weekend my boyfriend and I ventured from Albany, NY down to Ocean City, NJ. I make the pilgrimage down there yearly to spend some time with my extended family and swim in the ocean. But I dread the drive down every time. It’s a long and arduous trek through one of the most densely populated areas in the country, and I added a lot of extra miles on by taking a detour east of the Hudson to hang with some old buddies in CT.
We left around noon and headed down 95 South to 287. Regardless of time of day, there is always a good amount of traffic. I get irrationally angry when stuck in traffic, as if god had conjured up the bottleneck just to piss me off specifically. We cross the bridge, which I am terribly frightened of crossing (NY has no money…this bridge is really long…I wonder if they still do repairs…have they rated this bridge for safety? I wonder what it ranks…. *images of Tacoma narrows flash*…our infrastructure is crumbling everywhere else, why not when suspended over three miles of deep river?...It’s not like the government gives a fuck if we all die anyway….) We survive the bridge and make it to the next peril, the Garden State Parkway.
Here in the Northeast of America each state has its stereotypes about other states drivers. NY drivers are fast and aggressive jerks. CT people never use their turning signals and step on their breaks all the time for no reason. People from MA drive like assholes, hence, mass-holes. Jersey drivers are just completely insane. Like all stereotypes these obviously are not entirely true. But in my experience driving all over the NE it seems that there is a certain culture of driving that distinctly differs from place to place. If you think about it, driving on America’s interstate system is a sociological experiment: put all kinds of people into extremely fast metal machines, give them a set of rules to follow, and set them loose to interact with one another as they may. Over time people develop certain expectations of what constitutes “acceptable” behavior and that varies from place to place. And just like the rest of society, while the planners have a vision of how a system functions, the reality is much different.
I noticed that in the areas around NYC people drive incredibly fast. I usually go 65, sometimes 70mph, and on both sides of me cars were whipping past. Not only that, I found that many people tended to also weave unpredictably in and out of traffic. At one moment I was surrounded by cars on all sides, going extremely fast; I had a horrible feeling that I was just moments from a wreck. I could see people ahead of me accidentally drifting across the dotted lines that mark the lanes, and when I passed them I would see that they were on their cell phone, or reading, or looking at a GPS—pretty much anything except looking at the road. When we got off at a rest stop to the left of the highway and tried to merge again, a SUV going about 90mph cut into our lane and I pulled off to the shoulder just in time not to die. Jesse took the wheel for the rest of the ride down because I was too shaken up to keep driving after that.
And I was wondering as I finally got safely to the beach; how could all of these people I encountered be so nonchalant about the act of driving? When you really think about it, it is a very dangerous undertaking. People’s bodies can’t withstand the impact of a crash at the speeds many people travel. I felt like there was a fundamental lack of respect for the act of driving and of other drivers as well. People screaming and flipping each other off, not letting people get in lane when they have to exit, depending on technology instead of their own instincts. I feel as though the culture of driving has become, “My car will protect me if I get in a crash, so I can drive however I want. I don’t have to look at the road because my GPS system is guiding me, and if I want to watch TV--hell, I’m gonna do it.” Car companies are inventing cars that parallel park for you, that sense if you’re drifting into another lane and correct your steering, that stop if they sense that you are about to crash into something in front of you; essentially, rationalizing peoples’ obliviousness to surroundings when behind the wheel. It seems to say, “Don’t worry about thinking-- the machine will do it for you.”
But let’s just think people; how many times does your home computer glitch out and do something totally unpredictable? You want that happening when you’re flying down the road at 90?? The more and more I think about it, the whole system of driving is inherently flawed. It’s a system that’s designed in such a way that it is only safe if everyone obeys all the rules all the time. And that never happens, regardless of how many fucking state troopers you pay to sit on the highway and pull people over, or how many computer programs you write to compensate for human error.
And the most ironic part of this whole experience is that I was using an oil-burning vehicle to take a vacation by the ocean, which is being destroyed by an oil spill. Next year maybe I’ll travel on horseback.
This weekend my boyfriend and I ventured from Albany, NY down to Ocean City, NJ. I make the pilgrimage down there yearly to spend some time with my extended family and swim in the ocean. But I dread the drive down every time. It’s a long and arduous trek through one of the most densely populated areas in the country, and I added a lot of extra miles on by taking a detour east of the Hudson to hang with some old buddies in CT.
We left around noon and headed down 95 South to 287. Regardless of time of day, there is always a good amount of traffic. I get irrationally angry when stuck in traffic, as if god had conjured up the bottleneck just to piss me off specifically. We cross the bridge, which I am terribly frightened of crossing (NY has no money…this bridge is really long…I wonder if they still do repairs…have they rated this bridge for safety? I wonder what it ranks…. *images of Tacoma narrows flash*…our infrastructure is crumbling everywhere else, why not when suspended over three miles of deep river?...It’s not like the government gives a fuck if we all die anyway….) We survive the bridge and make it to the next peril, the Garden State Parkway.
Here in the Northeast of America each state has its stereotypes about other states drivers. NY drivers are fast and aggressive jerks. CT people never use their turning signals and step on their breaks all the time for no reason. People from MA drive like assholes, hence, mass-holes. Jersey drivers are just completely insane. Like all stereotypes these obviously are not entirely true. But in my experience driving all over the NE it seems that there is a certain culture of driving that distinctly differs from place to place. If you think about it, driving on America’s interstate system is a sociological experiment: put all kinds of people into extremely fast metal machines, give them a set of rules to follow, and set them loose to interact with one another as they may. Over time people develop certain expectations of what constitutes “acceptable” behavior and that varies from place to place. And just like the rest of society, while the planners have a vision of how a system functions, the reality is much different.
I noticed that in the areas around NYC people drive incredibly fast. I usually go 65, sometimes 70mph, and on both sides of me cars were whipping past. Not only that, I found that many people tended to also weave unpredictably in and out of traffic. At one moment I was surrounded by cars on all sides, going extremely fast; I had a horrible feeling that I was just moments from a wreck. I could see people ahead of me accidentally drifting across the dotted lines that mark the lanes, and when I passed them I would see that they were on their cell phone, or reading, or looking at a GPS—pretty much anything except looking at the road. When we got off at a rest stop to the left of the highway and tried to merge again, a SUV going about 90mph cut into our lane and I pulled off to the shoulder just in time not to die. Jesse took the wheel for the rest of the ride down because I was too shaken up to keep driving after that.
And I was wondering as I finally got safely to the beach; how could all of these people I encountered be so nonchalant about the act of driving? When you really think about it, it is a very dangerous undertaking. People’s bodies can’t withstand the impact of a crash at the speeds many people travel. I felt like there was a fundamental lack of respect for the act of driving and of other drivers as well. People screaming and flipping each other off, not letting people get in lane when they have to exit, depending on technology instead of their own instincts. I feel as though the culture of driving has become, “My car will protect me if I get in a crash, so I can drive however I want. I don’t have to look at the road because my GPS system is guiding me, and if I want to watch TV--hell, I’m gonna do it.” Car companies are inventing cars that parallel park for you, that sense if you’re drifting into another lane and correct your steering, that stop if they sense that you are about to crash into something in front of you; essentially, rationalizing peoples’ obliviousness to surroundings when behind the wheel. It seems to say, “Don’t worry about thinking-- the machine will do it for you.”
But let’s just think people; how many times does your home computer glitch out and do something totally unpredictable? You want that happening when you’re flying down the road at 90?? The more and more I think about it, the whole system of driving is inherently flawed. It’s a system that’s designed in such a way that it is only safe if everyone obeys all the rules all the time. And that never happens, regardless of how many fucking state troopers you pay to sit on the highway and pull people over, or how many computer programs you write to compensate for human error.
And the most ironic part of this whole experience is that I was using an oil-burning vehicle to take a vacation by the ocean, which is being destroyed by an oil spill. Next year maybe I’ll travel on horseback.
Sunday, June 20, 2010
I'm just shedding my DNA everywhere
I've been watching Star Trek: The Next Generation (Season 2) compulsively to help me avoid being present in the world and recently (while remaining entirely unproductive, distracted, and in a state of stagnancy) there have been several episodes in which members of the bridge crew of the Enterprise are lost or have nearly been lost due to varying circumstances and have had their DNA/DNA imprint/atomic imprint used in order to bring them back to life in deep space aboard the Enterprise in a healthy state. As a result of this inundation of fictitious 24th century imagery, I have naturally no doubt become more aware of the amount of DNA I leave around all the time. For example, I have a live hair follicle on my lap right now.
The more reclusive I become, the bigger the weirdo. I'm a little worried about myself.
The more reclusive I become, the bigger the weirdo. I'm a little worried about myself.
Friday, June 18, 2010
I didn't go to the 5th day of my apprenticeship today
sometimes I just don't have the strength within me to walk in a mans world with my head held high.
Thursday, June 17, 2010
HEY FELLAS, WHAT'S YOUR DAMAGE?
Dear various Croatian men,
PLEASE STOP IRKING ME
(I hope this isn't some kind of unfortunate cultural trait.)
Love, Lily
Dear Morino,
Have I ever once called you back? You've been calling me now for over a month, and I have never reciprocated. Do we really have anything to talk about on the phone? Your German isn't that good, and neither is mine. Do we know each other at all? Do we really have anything to say to each other? Yes, I should never have given you my phone number to begin with. Yes, you get points for being persistent, but I've had enough. Please cease and desist.
Love, Lily
Dear Milly,
You seem like a nice guy, really you do. You were helpful n' all on the first day showing me around. So why are you constantly trying to get a rise out of me? Yes I know I'm a girl in an all male workshop, and no doubt you and your co-workers are feeling shaken up and want to shake me up, my existence there no doubt in your mind makes me a deviant or some kind of a threat. You behave in a misogynistic way all the time and I'm growing tired of it (after all of 4 days) but my verbal skills in German aren't really good enough to articulate precisely enough what I mean. Can you stop teasing me about every little thing? Yes, to respond truthfully to your question I am a model (for art.) But what does that have to do with my right to wear a hat when its raining outside? And, no, I don't want to be a good housewife. I don't want to be anyone's wife. You say that you're a good husband. Do you think that your wife would take pleasure in seeing you tapping me on the ass with a piece of museum glass while I'm trying to put together a wood frame for the first time?
When I asked you not to do that, to leave my body alone, you told me that wasn't my body, it was an ass. Umm... how revealing of you being a big fucking misogynist, objectifying a part of my body, as if it wasn't a part of me, as if I wasn't connected to it at all. Then you asked if all American girls are as "gefährlich" as I am. Now, just what did you mean by that? The usual meaning is "dangerous." Is that what you meant? Or did you mean one of the plethora of other definitions of the word? Such as: risky, unsafe, awkward, or harmful? In any case, I should have shot back: "I dunno, are all Croatian men so disrespectful of the bodily autonomy of women and their consent to being touched, particularly while engaged in a task requiring concentration?" or "Do all Croatian men always try to thwart the way of young women in their new workplaces?" or "Ask Stevie, he's from Texas." or "Yes." or "How would you respond if I tapped you on the ass with a piece of museum glass while you were engaged in a task requiring your attention at work?" or "How would you respond if I touched any part of your body with or without museum glass?" or "Yes, they all don't like getting hit with glass." I could go on like this all day, but I have someone else to write to. I hope I can sleep on this and not have a problem with you at work tomorrow. You seem like a nice guy afterall, and I wouldn't want tension in the workplace.
Love, Lily
Dear Eban,
I appreciate all of your help with showing me how to sand a frame (despite how condescending you were about it, as if I'd never sanded anything in my life before, but maybe that's just your sense of humor) but why, me being an apprentice and all, would you ever tell me that I can't cut frames because "that's not women's work?"
WTF?
Love, Lily
On an unrelated-ly pleasant note, Jill is playing the piano right now and it is SO lovely!
PLEASE STOP IRKING ME
(I hope this isn't some kind of unfortunate cultural trait.)
Love, Lily
Dear Morino,
Have I ever once called you back? You've been calling me now for over a month, and I have never reciprocated. Do we really have anything to talk about on the phone? Your German isn't that good, and neither is mine. Do we know each other at all? Do we really have anything to say to each other? Yes, I should never have given you my phone number to begin with. Yes, you get points for being persistent, but I've had enough. Please cease and desist.
Love, Lily
Dear Milly,
You seem like a nice guy, really you do. You were helpful n' all on the first day showing me around. So why are you constantly trying to get a rise out of me? Yes I know I'm a girl in an all male workshop, and no doubt you and your co-workers are feeling shaken up and want to shake me up, my existence there no doubt in your mind makes me a deviant or some kind of a threat. You behave in a misogynistic way all the time and I'm growing tired of it (after all of 4 days) but my verbal skills in German aren't really good enough to articulate precisely enough what I mean. Can you stop teasing me about every little thing? Yes, to respond truthfully to your question I am a model (for art.) But what does that have to do with my right to wear a hat when its raining outside? And, no, I don't want to be a good housewife. I don't want to be anyone's wife. You say that you're a good husband. Do you think that your wife would take pleasure in seeing you tapping me on the ass with a piece of museum glass while I'm trying to put together a wood frame for the first time?
When I asked you not to do that, to leave my body alone, you told me that wasn't my body, it was an ass. Umm... how revealing of you being a big fucking misogynist, objectifying a part of my body, as if it wasn't a part of me, as if I wasn't connected to it at all. Then you asked if all American girls are as "gefährlich" as I am. Now, just what did you mean by that? The usual meaning is "dangerous." Is that what you meant? Or did you mean one of the plethora of other definitions of the word? Such as: risky, unsafe, awkward, or harmful? In any case, I should have shot back: "I dunno, are all Croatian men so disrespectful of the bodily autonomy of women and their consent to being touched, particularly while engaged in a task requiring concentration?" or "Do all Croatian men always try to thwart the way of young women in their new workplaces?" or "Ask Stevie, he's from Texas." or "Yes." or "How would you respond if I tapped you on the ass with a piece of museum glass while you were engaged in a task requiring your attention at work?" or "How would you respond if I touched any part of your body with or without museum glass?" or "Yes, they all don't like getting hit with glass." I could go on like this all day, but I have someone else to write to. I hope I can sleep on this and not have a problem with you at work tomorrow. You seem like a nice guy afterall, and I wouldn't want tension in the workplace.
Love, Lily
Dear Eban,
I appreciate all of your help with showing me how to sand a frame (despite how condescending you were about it, as if I'd never sanded anything in my life before, but maybe that's just your sense of humor) but why, me being an apprentice and all, would you ever tell me that I can't cut frames because "that's not women's work?"
WTF?
Love, Lily
On an unrelated-ly pleasant note, Jill is playing the piano right now and it is SO lovely!
Monday, June 14, 2010
Weird dreams/New things
Sometimes you gotta write and for me this is one of those times. Lacking in filtration, editing, ceremoniousness, or even necessarily poignancy. I'm a stranger in a strange land with some allies but not much emotional support (though that's shifting.) So here's today's VERY necessary unloading. Oh, and vapid or no, yr mom's still a ho.
I had South Western nostalgia dreams mixed up with Vermont nostalgia dreams last night. I woke up and wrote my dream down before my eyes had time to adjust to the light (my handwriting is evidence of this) and realized my new turquoise earring (flea market 75 cent booty/ibiza hippy market?) had fallen out of my ear while I was sleeping. I was afraid that it was too late even though I woke up 12,000,000 times between 6:30 and 9:00AM and poured tea down my throat and gobbled down the last piece of my gluten-free vegan lasagna (have to make more this week, that stuff is the best thing I've ever had in my mouth.) Got on the bike and went to my new apprenticeship as a framer and for 5.5 hours proceeded to cut mats. I did this while standing on a stool/simultaneously stooping because without the stool I was too short and with it I was towering over the mat cutter, causing difficulties in maintaining the expected level of precision for such a task. Freddy cooked a bangin' white asparagus soup for lunch, apparently he cooks lunch for all of his workers everyday and then when its nice out goes and takes a nap in the bench in the back yard. Talk about a chill work environment.
(Arco + Haenle Rahmen + Grafik Kunstverlag)
I wanted to go talk to him about hours but he was asleep on the bench. I just pretended I was checking to make sure my bike still existed. (It did.) As it turns out I can come and go as I wish. I wrote him a note to try and communicate about this issue (while I thought he was still sleeping in the garden) and he simply corrected the grammar and told me he would have it framed. No one who works in the workshop is German. We have me, two Croatians, and a Texan. Everyone is really really nice and solicitous and everyone's name ends in the "ee" sound. Freddy, Moopy, Milly, Stevie, Lily. OK, except maybe Eban. And maybe the lady who does the gold leafing on the frames but I haven't met her formally yet (although that is something I am SUPER interested in learning about.) Brigitte called and I'm getting an art class/puppet making class with her next week!!!! And then going to her birthday party! I was so excited to hear from her.
OH MY GOLLY I PARTIED WITH THE MOST AWESOME GROUP OF MONGOLS!
I was hanging out at Crystal's and we took a walk and had been wondering who was partying so hard outside of her house for however many hours-a group of super warm, lovely Mongolians. I talked with them for a while, can't say how long because my time-space orientation isn't that good in general and was particularly loopy at that hour but I'm guessing maybe an hour? It's incredible how thrilled people from really obscure countries with even more obscure languages are when you show that you've made some effort in learning their language. It totally makes the effort worthwhile. I kind of envy the experience from their side in a certain sense, being a native English speaker, I'm not expected to try, I'm always addressed in my native language which makes it difficult when I do, and I have no default secret language.
Strangely, this meeting of the Mongols occurred around the time I must have received an e-mail canceling my Mongolian Sprache Kurs for the rest of the semester, and also around the time that someone from Mongolia "friended" me on a virtual social networking utility? Bizzarro. The preceding floh-markts were effective, somewhat profitable, and generous. I sold almost all of my stuff or gave it away and had enough money to get myself some beautiful (space efficient) items: coral necklace I had been coveting (deadly sin) for some months at another vendors' booth (I get obsessive sometimes), bathing suit (much needed two weeks ago), etc. It was really good also to hang with Diana.
I say that I needed a bathing suit two weeks ago because I was in Amsterdam then and it was really hot and my lil' cuz Eva (wanna hang out with her more) & I went to too many flea markets and I bought 2.5 bathing suits there. I really don't need any more bathing suits, this is getting excessive. I went from none to 4.5.
In other news I just finished the first season of Star Trek: Next Generation and I feel a sense of loss. It is just so profound and nuanced and sophisticated and I have no space to download the next season (ha.) Also I cried all morning yesterday because I was watching coverage of the oil reaching Alabama's "White Beaches" and "Nature Conservatories." Ugh.
OK, this is starting to look like a livejournal entry of yore (like, c. 2001), I need to start writing in a real journal, and not just my dreams.
Right quick, projects:
-wings
-tryptych
-die kleine hexe
-puppen
-quitting the bad thing
-mongolian homework
-summer plans
-budget
P.S. Budapesht was also the shiat. Going to Berlin/Leipzig soon, then Prague, and hopefully Mongolia and more central Asia/Russia/the Balkans? Speaking of which I have an invite to Greece (and also to my G. Uncle in Switzerland), I should really take them up on it this time. I miss the U.S., hard. But right now I'm really happy to be here. Also to be riding my bike every day. Thank you uncle Robert! Hallelujah!
P.P.S. My mo sent me an amazing package in the mail with nine pairs of shoes and my brother's album.
P.P.P.S. JORDAN HAD HER BABY TODAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I had South Western nostalgia dreams mixed up with Vermont nostalgia dreams last night. I woke up and wrote my dream down before my eyes had time to adjust to the light (my handwriting is evidence of this) and realized my new turquoise earring (flea market 75 cent booty/ibiza hippy market?) had fallen out of my ear while I was sleeping. I was afraid that it was too late even though I woke up 12,000,000 times between 6:30 and 9:00AM and poured tea down my throat and gobbled down the last piece of my gluten-free vegan lasagna (have to make more this week, that stuff is the best thing I've ever had in my mouth.) Got on the bike and went to my new apprenticeship as a framer and for 5.5 hours proceeded to cut mats. I did this while standing on a stool/simultaneously stooping because without the stool I was too short and with it I was towering over the mat cutter, causing difficulties in maintaining the expected level of precision for such a task. Freddy cooked a bangin' white asparagus soup for lunch, apparently he cooks lunch for all of his workers everyday and then when its nice out goes and takes a nap in the bench in the back yard. Talk about a chill work environment.
(Arco + Haenle Rahmen + Grafik Kunstverlag)
I wanted to go talk to him about hours but he was asleep on the bench. I just pretended I was checking to make sure my bike still existed. (It did.) As it turns out I can come and go as I wish. I wrote him a note to try and communicate about this issue (while I thought he was still sleeping in the garden) and he simply corrected the grammar and told me he would have it framed. No one who works in the workshop is German. We have me, two Croatians, and a Texan. Everyone is really really nice and solicitous and everyone's name ends in the "ee" sound. Freddy, Moopy, Milly, Stevie, Lily. OK, except maybe Eban. And maybe the lady who does the gold leafing on the frames but I haven't met her formally yet (although that is something I am SUPER interested in learning about.) Brigitte called and I'm getting an art class/puppet making class with her next week!!!! And then going to her birthday party! I was so excited to hear from her.
OH MY GOLLY I PARTIED WITH THE MOST AWESOME GROUP OF MONGOLS!
I was hanging out at Crystal's and we took a walk and had been wondering who was partying so hard outside of her house for however many hours-a group of super warm, lovely Mongolians. I talked with them for a while, can't say how long because my time-space orientation isn't that good in general and was particularly loopy at that hour but I'm guessing maybe an hour? It's incredible how thrilled people from really obscure countries with even more obscure languages are when you show that you've made some effort in learning their language. It totally makes the effort worthwhile. I kind of envy the experience from their side in a certain sense, being a native English speaker, I'm not expected to try, I'm always addressed in my native language which makes it difficult when I do, and I have no default secret language.
Strangely, this meeting of the Mongols occurred around the time I must have received an e-mail canceling my Mongolian Sprache Kurs for the rest of the semester, and also around the time that someone from Mongolia "friended" me on a virtual social networking utility? Bizzarro. The preceding floh-markts were effective, somewhat profitable, and generous. I sold almost all of my stuff or gave it away and had enough money to get myself some beautiful (space efficient) items: coral necklace I had been coveting (deadly sin) for some months at another vendors' booth (I get obsessive sometimes), bathing suit (much needed two weeks ago), etc. It was really good also to hang with Diana.
I say that I needed a bathing suit two weeks ago because I was in Amsterdam then and it was really hot and my lil' cuz Eva (wanna hang out with her more) & I went to too many flea markets and I bought 2.5 bathing suits there. I really don't need any more bathing suits, this is getting excessive. I went from none to 4.5.
OK, this is starting to look like a livejournal entry of yore (like, c. 2001), I need to start writing in a real journal, and not just my dreams.
Right quick, projects:
-wings
-tryptych
-die kleine hexe
-puppen
-quitting the bad thing
-mongolian homework
-summer plans
-budget
P.S. Budapesht was also the shiat. Going to Berlin/Leipzig soon, then Prague, and hopefully Mongolia and more central Asia/Russia/the Balkans? Speaking of which I have an invite to Greece (and also to my G. Uncle in Switzerland), I should really take them up on it this time. I miss the U.S., hard. But right now I'm really happy to be here. Also to be riding my bike every day. Thank you uncle Robert! Hallelujah!
P.P.S. My mo sent me an amazing package in the mail with nine pairs of shoes and my brother's album.
P.P.P.S. JORDAN HAD HER BABY TODAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Sunday, June 13, 2010
An American in Mongolia: Part XX
Appendix
(AN AMERICAN IN MONGOLIA)
Personal Introduction presented at the start of an interview:My name is Lily, I go to Marlboro College in the Northeastern United States, and I’m an anthropology168 student studying abroad in Mongolia for the semester. My focus of study while I’ve been here has been spiritual life in Mongolia, although I’ve also been studying the Mongolian language, history, government, economy, art and culture. For my final project I am looking at the correlations and differences between shamans practicing in the city and in the countryside. So I hope that it’s alright if I ask you some questions to better help me understand shamanism in Mongolia. It’s my homework!
The answers that you give me will hopefully be incorporated into my research, so if you would like for me not you use your name, you can tell me now, or at the end of the interview.
Thank you!
Basic question set:
-The current age of the shaman as well as the time of life when subject became a shaman and their ethnicity (Khalkh, Buriyat, etc.) and shamanic color identification (white, black, or yellow.)
-The home aimag of the shaman, and the shaman’s breadth of knowledge concerning shamanism prior to becoming one.
-What the shaman’s “sickness” consisted of, if it occurred, and how it manifested, as well as if the shaman had a teacher. If not, how did the shaman discover s/he was a shaman.
-If the shaman had known ancestors who were also shamans, and if not then what the origins of their ongod were.
-That there was an occurrence of ongod partial possession or trance.
-What the working hours of the shaman are, if they operate on the lunar calendar or using symbolic numbers.
-If the shaman has a day job or alternate source of income.
-If the shaman has experienced any physical, psychological, emotional, and/or spiritual changes since becoming a shaman. If the shaman has had improved luck or health since becoming shaman.
-If the shaman has any memory of their own behavior during shaman-izing (while in trance/partial possession mode.)
-Who produced the shamanic costume and paraphenalia, and if the costume and paraphernalia were created under the direction of ongod or passed down by generation.
-Name, age, where from?
-How long have you been practicing shamanism, and how old were you when you began? Where did you become a shaman?
-How did you become a shaman? Did you have a teacher? Did you have some form of shaman’s sickness? Did your luck/health improve after you became a shaman? Do you have any shamans in your family?
-How did your emotional/psychological/
-Who are your personal ongods, and where is there home? What is your ethnicity?
-Was your shamanic costume designed under the direction of your ongod, as well as the way that your ger is set up, the instruments of your ritual, the way that the ritual itself is conducted?
-Do you have any personal awareness of your voice, behavior, or thoughts when you go into trance? If not, how do people tell you you’ve changed while you’re in trance?
-What color would you identify as? Black, white, yellow or something else?
Specific Question set:
Technicalities:
Did the subject have a set price-per-scheduled-ritual or a sliding scale based on what a client could afford or no tariff whatsoever; was there a non-arbitrary or spiritual basis for deciding upon working hours, and were they dictated to the subject by her/his ongod (s)?
Greater contextual consciousness:
Was there an expressed openness to practical shamanic intercultural exchange present; were there any articulated opinions by the subject about other city shamans and their practices; had the subject noticed the attitudes of others change towards the her/him after coming out as a shaman, and what was the subjects’ view on the evolving course of shamanism in Mongolia today?
Did the subject belong to or know of any groups of shamans, and if so, was s/he aware of what their affiliations were based upon; was there a desire for anonymity or notoriety, and would the subject ever consider ritualizing on a large scale on behalf of the public or for (gasp!) tourists?
Responsibility as spiritual leader within community:
Did the subject feel as if they were accountable to their clients, how would the subject define his/her relationship with clients and how many might they estimate to have had since becoming a shaman? In the subjects’ evaluation, was his/her clientele made up primarily of one socio-economic class, and was there a general trend in the expectations the clientele had of the subject? And finally, what did the subject feel was their role within society as a self-identified shaman?
-Do you know anything of the shamans of other cultures? What do you think about them? Might you ever incorporate the practices of a foreign shaman into your ritual?
-Do you have a schedule of practice, i.e. working hours? How did you decide on them? By the lunar calendar, (zar, tinger) or under the direction of your ongod? Do you rely upon shamanizing as your primary source of income?
-Do you have a set rate that you charge (tariff) those who seek your help? Why or why not?
-Do you know approximately how many people you have shamanized on behalf of?
-Do you know how many other shamans live in your area? What do you think of their practices?
-What have you heard about shamans practicing in the countryside/city?
-Do you have any aspirations to move into the countryside/city? Why/why not?
-How would you define your relationship with your clients? What kind of people seek your help (would you say?) Where do they come from? What do they hope to gain/lose by visiting you?
-Would you ever consider performing a shamanic ritual for tourists or for the public? How would that make you feel?
-Would you prefer to be well known in your community or maintain some kind of anonymity? Why?
-How did people react when you first became a shaman in this area? Have their attitudes towards you changed? How so?
-When you first began practicing here, were people familiar with shamanism? Were there any other shamans here?
-Would you consider yourself a leader of your community? Why/why not?
-What do you feel is your responsibility to your clients, and what is their responsibility to you?
-How do you think shamanism in Mongolia has changed (along with public perceptions of it) since you became a shaman? Since the Soviet era?
Shamanism survey: шашиний судалгаа
I’m an anthropology student studying abroad in Mongolia for the semester doing a comparative study of urban and rural shamanism. I would greatly appreciate if you took the time to answer the questions below, as they would help my research. Thanks very much!
Би Монголд нэг семестрийн хугацаатай сурч байгаа антроплоги судлалын оюутан одоогоор хот болон талаар харьцуулсан судалгаа хийж байгаа юм. Цаг гарган миний судалгааны асуултанд хариулж байгаад тань туйлаас талархаж байна.
Would you describe yourself as a religious person? Та рийг гэж боддог уу?
If so, which religion do you subscribe to? Хэрэв тийм бол ямар шашинтай вэ?
What are your views on shamanism in Mongolia today (briefly)? нгийн Монголын шашины талаарх таны бодол юу вэ? (товч)
Would you ever consider visiting a shaman for help? Why/why not? Та бдээр тусламж авахаар очиж байсан уу? Яагаадочсон?/Яагаад ?
Do you know any shamans? If so, do they live in the city or the countryside? Та хэн нэгэн мэдэх ? Хэрэв тийм бол тэр хотод амьдардаг уу амьдардаг уу?
What do you think about the practices of shamans in Ulaanbaatar? Улаанбаатарт байдаг бнарын талаар та гэж боддог вэ?
Баярлалаа.
Results of shamanism survey for laypeople at the artists union 6-4-08:People identifying as religious: 7/10, 1/10 said “a little bit”, another said “maybe”, one said no.
Religious affiliation: 5/10 Buddhist, 1/10 Buddhist/Shamanist, 2/10 Shamanist, 2/10 “No” or “Don’t worship no religion.”
Sampling of Views on Shamanism in Mongolia today: “My ancient ancestors spirits stayed”, “National Religion”, “It is our most ancient religion, worshipping nature; sky, earth, fire, water is the most correct thing”, “Ancient tradition, perhaps origin of Buddhism”, “Restarting again”, “Don’t know”, “Too bad”, “Mongolian’s original religion”, “Very good”, “I think it’s normal for me.”
Consider visiting a shaman for help: “Yes, because I needed help”, “Yes I visit because I’m Mongolian”, “My family has own ongots”, “I don’t know any shamans”, “Myself shaman”, 2/10 “No”, “Yes”, “No, don’t know well”, “No never.”
Know any shamans, and where: 3/10 “No”, “2”, 2/10 “Lives in UB”, 2/10 “Don’t know”, 2/10 “Both city & countryside.”
Perceptions of shamans in UB: “I don’t care where they live if they can communicate with ongods”, “I don’t think much about them”, “It seems most shamans moved to UB, I hear many people talking about shamanism”, 2/10 “Don’t know”, “Just shamans”, “Bad”, “Many fake shamans”, “Depends, they are different. Some of them really good. But others only interested in making money. That’s what I think.”
The rules of Chanar for non-shamans, Bayan Uul 2008:
- Don’t go into the fire circle, or you’ll anger the spirits.
- Don’t spit near the fire, or eternal fire will be dirtied.
- Don’t fight.
- Don’t walk around the fire.
- When making offering to the fire, take three steps backwards immediately afterwards.
- No garbage near or in the fire.
- Don’t swear near the fire.
- Don’t pollute the environment.
- Near/in the prayer circle (sky’s blue temple/altar) obey Mongolian customs, that is, keep your hands in your lap while sitting, at your sides while standing, out of your pockets, don’t cross your legs, take off your hat, etc. It will also offend the spirits if you drink vodka, or smoke in this area.
- Be careful not to set things on fire.
- Follow the rules.
- Don’t poke or point with your fingers towards the fire, you’ll call the demons.
- Don’t burn anything with a bad smell near the fire (plastic, skin, hair, etc.)
- If you’re on your period, leave or you will dirty the fire.
- Don’t point or show the fire tongs at the heavens.
- When making offerings to the fire, you must add argal (dung) by hand, vodka by cup, and butter by ladle.
- Don’t sit with your legs open. Sky will be upset.
- Don’t warm hands by ceremonial fire, or your life will be cold.
- Don’t chop wood near the fire. Or the fire will be decapitated.
- If you recently gave birth, leave.
- Don’t show the bottoms of your feet to the fire.
- If you’re pregnant, don’t make offering, or your baby will be miscarried.
- Don’t offer milk to the fire, or you will go blind.
- Don’t offer water to the fire.
Bibliography
(AN AMERICAN IN MONGOLIA)
Books:Abram, David. The Spell of the Sensuous: Perception and Language in a More-Than-Human World. New York: Vintage, 1997.
Altangeral, D., trans. Mongolian Folktales (In English and Mongolian). Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia: Haan Printing Company Limited, 2003.
Dikov, Nikolai N. Early Cultures of Northeastern Asia. Moscow, Russia: Nauka.
- Dulam, Bumochir. Mongol Shamanic Ritual. Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia: Mokhiin Useg Company Limited, 2002.
- Eliade, Mircea. Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy. Trans. Williard R. Trask. New York, New York: Arkana, Penguin Group, 1989.
- Empson, Rebecca, ed. Time, Causality and Prophesy in the Mongolian Culture Region: Visions of the Future. Kent, Great Britain: Global Oriental Limited, 2006.
Walter, Mariko N., and Eva J. Neumann Fridman, eds. Shamanism: An Encyclopedia of World Beliefs.
Journal/Magazine Articles:
Batmonkh, Sh. "Businessmen will sue government in court." UB Post 21 Feb. 2008. 10 Jan. 2008 <http://ubpost.
Batmonkh, Sh. "Market Children in Mongolia." UB Post 6 May 2008. 5 Jan. 2009 <http://ubpost.mongolnews.mn/
Carlyle May, L. "A Survey of Glossolalia and Related Phenomena in Non-Christian Religions." American Anthropologist New 58 (1956): 83.
Humphrey, Caroline. "Shamans in the City." Anthropology Today 15 (1999).
Shimamura, Ippei. "More than One Homeland?: Diasporic Imaginations of the Aga-Buryats." Minpaku Anthropology Newsletter (2004).
Wingfield-Hayes, Rupert. "Mongolia's Drinking Epidemic." BBC News Asia-Pacific 25 Sept. 2003. BBC News. 12 Jan. 2009 <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/
"What is a Twinkie." Yahoo! GeoCities 04 May 2009 <http://www.geocities.com/
Lectures:
Bumochir, Dulam. "Shamanism in Mongolia." School of International Training at the University of the Humanities premises, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. Mar. 2008.
Mend-Oyo, T. "Morin Khuur, not just a music instrument." School of International Training at the University of the Humanities premises, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. 21 Apr. 2008.
Patrick, Father. "Catholicism in Modern Mongolia." Catholic Compound, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. Mar. 2008.
Sandagjey, E. "Khomii: Mongolian Traditional Throat Singing." School of International Training at the University of the Humanities premises, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. 23 Apr. 2008.
Uranchimed, Ts. "Ancient and Contemporary Art in Mongolia." School of International Training premises at the University of the Humanities, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. 29 Apr. 2008.
Interviews conducted by the author:
Alexander. 2008. Formal conversation with author.
Bayan Uul, Dornod; Mongolia. May, 25.
Bayermaa. 2008. Interview by author.
Bayan Uul, Dornod; Mongolia. May, 20.
Chantal. 2008. Interview by author at the Mahayana Center NGO
Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. April, 25.
Deggie. 2008. Interview with author.
Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. June, 2.
Erdentorch. 2008. Interview by author.
Onderkhan, Khentii; Mongolia. May, 18.
Ganbold. 2008. Interview with author.
Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. May, 31.
Tsetseg. 2008. Interview by author.
Onderkhan, Khentii; Mongolia. May, 17.
Zaya. 2008. Interview with author.
Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. May, 29.
Zorigtbaatar. 2008. Interview by author.
Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. May, 13.
Zorigtbaatar. Ritual observations by author.
Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. May, 29.
SKY DOOR OPEN.....P.S. there are literally over 70 long and informative footnotes missing from this blog if it feels like there are holes, my apologies, there's only so much copying & pasting a person can do before they feel like they're gonna kill themselves.
An American in Mongolia: Part XIX
The Urban Shaman as a Metaphor for Transforming Mongolia
I went to Mongolia because I wanted to have all of my preconceived notions about Mongolia, Central Asia, Soviet Satellite states, Asia, Orientalism, “the exotic other,” my own ethnic identity, “belonging,” Genghis Khan, furry hats, horseback riding, the developing world, the archetypes and stereotypes of being a foreigner, being a tourist, and being a seeker eradicated. The experience of existing in Mongolia amongst Mongolians and the ensuing process of writing about that experience provided me with just that. I wrote this essay because I saw an interesting phenomenon, that of the Urban Shaman, that I wanted to explore further, and this investigation had the effect of turning all of my rigidity into fluidity. All and any of my inferences are open-ended and relatively uncertain. If I were to try and come up with conclusive conclusions, I fear I would run the risk of denying the complexity of those who I had the privilege of interacting with in Mongolia. It would be an injustice to the weighty and acute effect that they had upon me. That said, all told, of the six self-identifying shamans who I had an opportunity to interview, five fit the Mongolian qualifications of “shaman.” My interviews were split evenly between urban and rural shamans. The urban subject of my first interview, Zorigtbaatar was questionable insofar as fitting these qualifications, so to be safe I will place him within the category of “non-conventional.” However, the constructed sub-categories traditionally and contemporarily attributed to the different kinds of shamanism can never encompass the smooth variability inherent in its cosmology or practice. Therefore, I would like to propose a new shamanic color identification. Rainbow shamans may be those who have integrated the practices or information from outside of Mongolia, or outside of their own color or ethnic tradition into their practices. Otherwise she might have made her ritual appropriate in a fashionable urban context and deviated from tradition. She could have no spiritual relationship or be an exploiter of the impoverished, she could be a performer for tourists, or she could have an undefined spiritual relationship and call herself a shaman regardless of the “legitimacy” of that claim. In short, a rainbow shaman can be whatever she wants. I think that the rainbow shaman in Ulaanbaatar can serve as a metaphor for transitioning Mongolia today.
If Mongolia can reconfigure itself, and by that I mean if Mongolians can organize themselves to play an active role in the amelioration of their own suffering by addressing their own needs: spiritual, political, social, ethical, emotional and economic—with the stabilizing support of rich, inimitable Mongolian tradition, shamans, the politicians, and the help being offered from the outside—then they can ensure their future status within the greater context of the future global landscape. Mongolia has the potential to be whatever its constituency decides it wants to be collectively. This is a very vulnerable, mutable, and yet propitious position. If this potentiality is to be manifested in the manner that Mongolians desire and decide, they must re-examine their connections to their ancestors and the land that they have been tied to since the promulgation of their culture in hopes of developing—for themselves—a symbiotic praxis of self-determination.
Friday, May 28, 2010
An American in Mongolia: Part XVIII
May 27-June 4:
Upon my return to Ulaanbaatar I scheduled a follow up interview with Deggie, a shaman who lives in Ulaanbaatar whom I met and spoke with at Harhira, and who agreed to a follow up clarification interview. Deggie clarified some of the ritual that I had witnessed as well as shedding some light on the origins of Tengereen Suld, and of course we exchanged photographs from the Harhira ritual grounds. I also got to meet with a shaman called Zaya who lives in Ulaanbaatar but is from Bayanhongor aimag. I developed a survey for laypeople and distributed it to artists while working on my prints at the artists union, and interviewed Ganbold the director of the Suki Theater.
I met Zaya through my tremendously helpful and caring host family in Ulaanbaatar. She is a young shamaness/hairdresser (her hobby is eyebrow, eyeliner, and lip-liner tattooing) who had the onset of her shamans’ sickness after the birth of her second child two years ago (as of 2008.) She was aware of her shamanic ancestry prior to the arrival of symptoms of shaman’s sickness; in fact she had witnessed the shamanizing of her ongod (her grandmother) when she was a little girl. She also showed me a number of beautiful talismans of ancient origins passed on to her as heirlooms, including a tiny chip of a meteorite and a bronze amulet that she incorporated into her shamans’ costume and her battag as protection from malevolent or unfamiliar spirits while she’s in trance. Zaya also told me that she found that she couldn’t shamanize in her apartment (although she has been looking into the practices of shamans around the world on the internet in her apartment), so she had built a ger specifically for the purposes of ongod worship. I wish that she had expounded upon this remark (Interview with Zaya in Ulaanbaatar, 5-29-08.)
While the responses that I received to my survey of laypeople were very interesting, they were very curt and the sample was too small, and therefore the results are inconclusive to include in this paper, but if the reader is interested, see the appendix for further information.
I watched the performance of the Moonstone at the Suki Theater and then interviewed Ganbold72, the artistic director of the show who was fascinating. The gentleman had evidently spent a great deal of time, much like an anthropologist, researching the subjects of mimesis. He told me about some of his research in preparation for the development of the costumes and choreography:
Shamanism began 5,000 BC, I researched the ancient shamanism of the Darhkad, Uriankhai, and the Tsaatan peoples, spoke with researchers of shamanism and read several books on the subject, as well as speaking with shamans themselves. From these experiences I learned that white shamans have 55 ancestral spirits; black shamans have 44 local spirits. The costumes of shamans are 80% different now than ancient shaman’s clothes, before 1930 they hadn’t changed/mixed with Buddhism. The costumes of ancient shamans were open in the armpit to connect with the sky; the drum is the shaman’s mouth, the stick the shamans tongue. All equipment is alive.
Shamanism’s not the kind of thing that can be studied in a book, rather one must have a special connection with the sky/some kind of sickness/a teacher. At first shamans use an old man’s cane, then drum after they have learned to use the cane--then they use an actual drumstick, designed for that purpose. On the drum there are pictures of animals the shaman has killed. Putting the picture of the animals on the drum makes the animal immortal. The drum is of course the vehicle that the shaman uses to travel in the spirit world. The most powerful drum is made out of moose skin. A black shaman uses a circular drum and a white shaman uses a more triangular one, the frame is made of a special wood. If there are 27 animals embroidered on the back of the shaman’s robes, then they are the most powerful. The left side of the shaman’s robes has good energy/luck for relatives. The right side of the shamans robes brings luck to regular people if you touch it. The back center of the costume brings luck and good energy to the nuclear family. Ancient shamans didn’t use a mirror to deflect bad spirits.
Despite Ganbold’s breadth of knowledge, the show was an artistic representation mimicking the sacred, spiritual, and nature-based act of ritual in shamanism that had been stripped of its symbolic and ritualistic meaning so that it would be digestible for tourists eager to glean a little bit of each aspect of Mongolia’s cultural history in an hour. It was an excellent aesthetic representation of shamanic ritual, and Ganbold was careful to say that while it was very highly choreographed, and based in the ancient history of shamanism as opposed to drawing from contemporary shamanic practices, it was attempting to balance the authentic with the aesthetic.
In the Moonstone a one hour performance shows tourists as much of Mongolian culture as possible in a short time. Black, white, green, blue colors are used in the shamanistic costume in the performance. I try to balance authenticity with aesthetics.
There’s a performance DVD focusing on shamanism, in August it will be ready.
I have seen shamanizing, and it is always different. I took general things like dancing, drumming, mouth harp playing, fire, etc. to recreate the dance in a performative context. The performance is one hour and fifteen minutes long, as for the shaman performance-it is difficult to use everything so we try to use as much as we can, for example becoming a shaman, shaman’s sickness, and women shamans (the first and now most powerful.)
My concern with the show was what it intended to portray, and who its intended audience was. Ganbold replied that the intended audience was outsiders visiting Mongolia with no cultural point of reference or prior education on the subjects of Mongolian shamanism, Tsam dance, or Khoomii. I found this honest response only problematic insofar as this audience was going to see the show and (perhaps) formulate their perceptions of historically and culturally rich Mongolia based entirely upon something that had its inherent connotations removed, and during the interview I told him so. However when he told me “at the Suki Center, we regularly bring shamans in to see the show and see what they think about it, and we’ve gotten a very good response so far.” I certainly couldn’t argue.
Upon my return to Ulaanbaatar I scheduled a follow up interview with Deggie, a shaman who lives in Ulaanbaatar whom I met and spoke with at Harhira, and who agreed to a follow up clarification interview. Deggie clarified some of the ritual that I had witnessed as well as shedding some light on the origins of Tengereen Suld, and of course we exchanged photographs from the Harhira ritual grounds. I also got to meet with a shaman called Zaya who lives in Ulaanbaatar but is from Bayanhongor aimag. I developed a survey for laypeople and distributed it to artists while working on my prints at the artists union, and interviewed Ganbold the director of the Suki Theater.
I met Zaya through my tremendously helpful and caring host family in Ulaanbaatar. She is a young shamaness/hairdresser (her hobby is eyebrow, eyeliner, and lip-liner tattooing) who had the onset of her shamans’ sickness after the birth of her second child two years ago (as of 2008.) She was aware of her shamanic ancestry prior to the arrival of symptoms of shaman’s sickness; in fact she had witnessed the shamanizing of her ongod (her grandmother) when she was a little girl. She also showed me a number of beautiful talismans of ancient origins passed on to her as heirlooms, including a tiny chip of a meteorite and a bronze amulet that she incorporated into her shamans’ costume and her battag as protection from malevolent or unfamiliar spirits while she’s in trance. Zaya also told me that she found that she couldn’t shamanize in her apartment (although she has been looking into the practices of shamans around the world on the internet in her apartment), so she had built a ger specifically for the purposes of ongod worship. I wish that she had expounded upon this remark (Interview with Zaya in Ulaanbaatar, 5-29-08.)
While the responses that I received to my survey of laypeople were very interesting, they were very curt and the sample was too small, and therefore the results are inconclusive to include in this paper, but if the reader is interested, see the appendix for further information.
I watched the performance of the Moonstone at the Suki Theater and then interviewed Ganbold72, the artistic director of the show who was fascinating. The gentleman had evidently spent a great deal of time, much like an anthropologist, researching the subjects of mimesis. He told me about some of his research in preparation for the development of the costumes and choreography:
Shamanism began 5,000 BC, I researched the ancient shamanism of the Darhkad, Uriankhai, and the Tsaatan peoples, spoke with researchers of shamanism and read several books on the subject, as well as speaking with shamans themselves. From these experiences I learned that white shamans have 55 ancestral spirits; black shamans have 44 local spirits. The costumes of shamans are 80% different now than ancient shaman’s clothes, before 1930 they hadn’t changed/mixed with Buddhism. The costumes of ancient shamans were open in the armpit to connect with the sky; the drum is the shaman’s mouth, the stick the shamans tongue. All equipment is alive.
Shamanism’s not the kind of thing that can be studied in a book, rather one must have a special connection with the sky/some kind of sickness/a teacher. At first shamans use an old man’s cane, then drum after they have learned to use the cane--then they use an actual drumstick, designed for that purpose. On the drum there are pictures of animals the shaman has killed. Putting the picture of the animals on the drum makes the animal immortal. The drum is of course the vehicle that the shaman uses to travel in the spirit world. The most powerful drum is made out of moose skin. A black shaman uses a circular drum and a white shaman uses a more triangular one, the frame is made of a special wood. If there are 27 animals embroidered on the back of the shaman’s robes, then they are the most powerful. The left side of the shaman’s robes has good energy/luck for relatives. The right side of the shamans robes brings luck to regular people if you touch it. The back center of the costume brings luck and good energy to the nuclear family. Ancient shamans didn’t use a mirror to deflect bad spirits.
Despite Ganbold’s breadth of knowledge, the show was an artistic representation mimicking the sacred, spiritual, and nature-based act of ritual in shamanism that had been stripped of its symbolic and ritualistic meaning so that it would be digestible for tourists eager to glean a little bit of each aspect of Mongolia’s cultural history in an hour. It was an excellent aesthetic representation of shamanic ritual, and Ganbold was careful to say that while it was very highly choreographed, and based in the ancient history of shamanism as opposed to drawing from contemporary shamanic practices, it was attempting to balance the authentic with the aesthetic.
In the Moonstone a one hour performance shows tourists as much of Mongolian culture as possible in a short time. Black, white, green, blue colors are used in the shamanistic costume in the performance. I try to balance authenticity with aesthetics.
There’s a performance DVD focusing on shamanism, in August it will be ready.
I have seen shamanizing, and it is always different. I took general things like dancing, drumming, mouth harp playing, fire, etc. to recreate the dance in a performative context. The performance is one hour and fifteen minutes long, as for the shaman performance-it is difficult to use everything so we try to use as much as we can, for example becoming a shaman, shaman’s sickness, and women shamans (the first and now most powerful.)
My concern with the show was what it intended to portray, and who its intended audience was. Ganbold replied that the intended audience was outsiders visiting Mongolia with no cultural point of reference or prior education on the subjects of Mongolian shamanism, Tsam dance, or Khoomii. I found this honest response only problematic insofar as this audience was going to see the show and (perhaps) formulate their perceptions of historically and culturally rich Mongolia based entirely upon something that had its inherent connotations removed, and during the interview I told him so. However when he told me “at the Suki Center, we regularly bring shamans in to see the show and see what they think about it, and we’ve gotten a very good response so far.” I certainly couldn’t argue.
An American in Mongolia: Part XVII
May 16-26: In the countryside
At the onset of my fieldwork in Khentii and Dornod aimags, it became clear to me that my research (and my traveling companion Lea’s as well) was blessed (which in fact, was true, Zorigtbaatar had sent me blessings before my departure). With little to no planning going into the field in the countryside, and with few expectations except to try and meet with and interview as many shamans as I could find, and if permitted, to observe some ritual, I landed myself in the right place at the right time right in the thick of things, repeatedly.
Lea and I had been conducting joint interviews in Onderkhan, Khentii aimag for a week with the help of our translator Zulaa, and every single anthropologically qualified shaman51 (4/4) that we met there made mention of a summer-long chanar ritual in our next scheduled location, Bayan Uul, Dornod aimag (Interview transcripts with Tsetseg, Erdentorch, and Bayermaa, May 16-20.) Not only had we been unknowingly traveling to the right place, it was also the correct timing! This particular chanar ritual was for the shamans of an ethical shamans organization52 that I learned was called Tengereen Suld53, and it was to begin exactly two days after our projected arrival date. I was really excited to discover the existence of Tengereen Suld. We went to Bayan Uul soum in Dornod aimag for the second week of our countryside research on May 20th and discovered that we were headed to the chanar ceremony54 with the largest attendance55 in the country (and possibly in the world!) It was as if we had followed a straight shooting arrow right into the focal point of contemporary Mongolian shamanism.56 Then, we were told by Zulaa, (who is an excellent diplomat and negotiator on our behalf) that we were not only allowed to observe the ceremony for three days at the Harhira ritual grounds, but that we would also be granted a ger accommodation right on them by Oyunbaatar, the current leader of the countryside satellite location of Tengereen Suld. The NGO also has a headquarters in Ulaanbaatar lead in title by a professor of shamanism at the Mongolian National University named G. Gantogtokheen.57
Tengereen Suld was founded in 2003 by a well-renowned shaman named Tseren Bo with his students from Mongolia, Russia, Italy, China, the pamphlet from their registered NGO states, because every shaman must “make” chanar every year, develop into qualified shamans, and because the shaman’s social position in society is high and they must protect people. It continues, now that shamans are out in the open since the restoration of freedom of religion, there are many. The existence of Tengereen Suld helps people to pick out the good shamans from the bad. According to Tengereen Suld’s rules, one cannot shamanize until the end of the 4th chanar, and then one must lead a healthy, simple life in order to be able to help others. Shamans should be polite, and follow the words of Tseren Bo channeled through Oyunbaatar. Tengereen Suld is for shamans and nature, and the natural balance ONLY. All shamans in the organization must follow the rules.58 Some of the projects at hand are: Teaching young shamans traditional Mongolian so that young shamans can read ancient books. Another future purpose is to establish a white shamans’ hospital59, to create an archive of shamanic songs, and to facilitate a foreign shaman’s information exchange.60
During the opening ritual of chanar, when all thirteen of the male and eight of the female shamans in full shamanic regalia prayed and chanted “Om Mane Padme Hum”61 and called their ongod, I had the opportunity to witness my first shamanic possession. This is what it was like according to Lea’s field notes (mine are mysteriously missing)
Inside again, drumming. Getting dark and cold. Oyunbaatar starts calling his father's spirit in a chant that is low and strong, wavering. He chants for a long time drumming louder and louder everyone together thrum thrum thrum and suddenly he lurched forward eyes half-open? So fast I can't remember. The crowd poured like a river to see, we were behind, couldn't see anything. Rumors, Tseren [Zaarin] had come to Oyunbaatar, he was crawling. And then it was over just like that. Oyunbaatar sitting and laughing and smoking and discussing the message. But Zulaa couldnt hear. What did he say? What did he say?
[We] found out later from Zulaa that Tseren Zaarin (in Oyunbaatar’s body) said that he sent the rainbows because the students were so good.
[Then, again the] shamans [were] chanting, no one else [went] into trance, Oyunbaatar was laughing at us for still being awake, the drums in the candlelight.
Oyunbaatar was possessed by the spirit of his father, Tseren Zaarin, and he crawled on the ground as the ongod entered his body. Lea and I were not privy to the information that Tseren Zaarin shared with the group of shamans, because we are laypeople and outsiders, but it was quite a thing to behold. While the shamans were shamanizing a rain storm had begun. When the shamans took a break and we left the prayer house where the shamanizing of the evening had been taking place, the rain stopped, and two rainbows stretched directly over the grounds (and I was able to run to the end of one!62), a supposed manifestation of Tseren Zaarin’s spirit.
Chanar in Bayan Uul amongst the members of Tengereen Suld was very interesting because it was both a Khalk and Buryat event, but while there were shamans of all three color identifications present and varying ethnicities, a great deal of the costume and most of the ritualistic practices varied very little.
This was because all of the shamans in attendance were students of only a few teachers, who all learned their practices from Tseren Zaarin. For example, I only encountered three kinds of shamans del and headdress while observing chanar, although there were many participants. Most shamans appeared to have two dels, a black and white shaman’s del in Khalk style, (see figure #?...) however I did inspect one del that deviated from the norm somewhat, worn by a new shamaness or udgan during her initiation ceremony.
While in a small, enclosed space full of shamans calling their ongods in full regalia, it’s very difficult at times to remember that you are awake. Indeed, the headdress63 alone has a surreal affectation, it seems otherworldly, and indeed, that is the purpose it is designed for, as the headdress is what confuses potential unfamiliar or malevolent spirits from finding the shamans’ face during spirit travel. The Buriyat headdress is “Abagaldei, a monstrous mask of hide, wood, or metal, on which is painted an enormous beard.”64
Each individual “shaman’s chanar” ritual was a total of three days in length. The commencement ceremony acknowledging the opening of the sky door was an evening’s length, so Lea, Zulaa and I got to witness the magic that takes place during the first two days and nights of chanar for two shamans, a male shaman or zairan and a female shaman or ugdan. For three whole days and nights shamans “doing” chanar are continually chased by children65 around the a ritual fire66 and the trees that they use to climb while possessed by their ongod67 (this occurs on the third evening, so I didn’t get to see it myself) calling on their ongod.
On the second evening, after a whole day and night of sporadic partial possession, the shamans are usually successful in prolonging possession extensively enough to dance on broken glass barefoot, and then climb half-way up the ladder to the platform on which an offering of boiled sheep’s back is placed. 68 There are two platforms69, one for each shaman “making” chanar, the male shaman dancing on the easterly side, and the women on the west.70 After the possessed shaman has ecstatically been dancing on glass for some time (I saw a shaman dancing on glass for approximately 10 minutes) she climbs the ladder and then the ongod usually leaves the shaman’s body and the shaman blacks out. It was a frightening sight watching unconscious shamans falling off of ladders, but both times they landed in a specially prepared felt-blankets held by three strong men. The shaman is grabbed in the blanket, and three men carry her running between the trees71, until arriving back at a spot in close proximity to the original platform, where the shaman is dropped, and returning to consciousness, exhaustedly hobbles to a congregation area to have her feet inspected. I was told that both of shamans’ feet were unharmed, but I didn’t get to see them myself, as there was a crowd of family members and high ranking shamans whose examination took precedent over mine.
I didn’t get to talk to that many shamans while I was actually observing the ritual (they were mostly too busy participating), and it was important for me to return to the city to conduct further interviews with urban shamans so that I would have a basis for comparison after witnessing chanar and speaking with them informally and formally there. Unfortunately because of this I was unable to view the final evening of one set of shaman’s chanar, but I had material from observations (although I didn’t always understand what I was seeing, and Zulaa didn’t always know what was going on either, nor feel comfortable talking about what was going on during the rituals when she did at times) over a meager three days at Harhira to proceed.
At the onset of my fieldwork in Khentii and Dornod aimags, it became clear to me that my research (and my traveling companion Lea’s as well) was blessed (which in fact, was true, Zorigtbaatar had sent me blessings before my departure). With little to no planning going into the field in the countryside, and with few expectations except to try and meet with and interview as many shamans as I could find, and if permitted, to observe some ritual, I landed myself in the right place at the right time right in the thick of things, repeatedly.
Lea and I had been conducting joint interviews in Onderkhan, Khentii aimag for a week with the help of our translator Zulaa, and every single anthropologically qualified shaman51 (4/4) that we met there made mention of a summer-long chanar ritual in our next scheduled location, Bayan Uul, Dornod aimag (Interview transcripts with Tsetseg, Erdentorch, and Bayermaa, May 16-20.) Not only had we been unknowingly traveling to the right place, it was also the correct timing! This particular chanar ritual was for the shamans of an ethical shamans organization52 that I learned was called Tengereen Suld53, and it was to begin exactly two days after our projected arrival date. I was really excited to discover the existence of Tengereen Suld. We went to Bayan Uul soum in Dornod aimag for the second week of our countryside research on May 20th and discovered that we were headed to the chanar ceremony54 with the largest attendance55 in the country (and possibly in the world!) It was as if we had followed a straight shooting arrow right into the focal point of contemporary Mongolian shamanism.56 Then, we were told by Zulaa, (who is an excellent diplomat and negotiator on our behalf) that we were not only allowed to observe the ceremony for three days at the Harhira ritual grounds, but that we would also be granted a ger accommodation right on them by Oyunbaatar, the current leader of the countryside satellite location of Tengereen Suld. The NGO also has a headquarters in Ulaanbaatar lead in title by a professor of shamanism at the Mongolian National University named G. Gantogtokheen.57
Tengereen Suld was founded in 2003 by a well-renowned shaman named Tseren Bo with his students from Mongolia, Russia, Italy, China, the pamphlet from their registered NGO states, because every shaman must “make” chanar every year, develop into qualified shamans, and because the shaman’s social position in society is high and they must protect people. It continues, now that shamans are out in the open since the restoration of freedom of religion, there are many. The existence of Tengereen Suld helps people to pick out the good shamans from the bad. According to Tengereen Suld’s rules, one cannot shamanize until the end of the 4th chanar, and then one must lead a healthy, simple life in order to be able to help others. Shamans should be polite, and follow the words of Tseren Bo channeled through Oyunbaatar. Tengereen Suld is for shamans and nature, and the natural balance ONLY. All shamans in the organization must follow the rules.58 Some of the projects at hand are: Teaching young shamans traditional Mongolian so that young shamans can read ancient books. Another future purpose is to establish a white shamans’ hospital59, to create an archive of shamanic songs, and to facilitate a foreign shaman’s information exchange.60
During the opening ritual of chanar, when all thirteen of the male and eight of the female shamans in full shamanic regalia prayed and chanted “Om Mane Padme Hum”61 and called their ongod, I had the opportunity to witness my first shamanic possession. This is what it was like according to Lea’s field notes (mine are mysteriously missing)
Inside again, drumming. Getting dark and cold. Oyunbaatar starts calling his father's spirit in a chant that is low and strong, wavering. He chants for a long time drumming louder and louder everyone together thrum thrum thrum and suddenly he lurched forward eyes half-open? So fast I can't remember. The crowd poured like a river to see, we were behind, couldn't see anything. Rumors, Tseren [Zaarin] had come to Oyunbaatar, he was crawling. And then it was over just like that. Oyunbaatar sitting and laughing and smoking and discussing the message. But Zulaa couldnt hear. What did he say? What did he say?
[We] found out later from Zulaa that Tseren Zaarin (in Oyunbaatar’s body) said that he sent the rainbows because the students were so good.
[Then, again the] shamans [were] chanting, no one else [went] into trance, Oyunbaatar was laughing at us for still being awake, the drums in the candlelight.
Oyunbaatar was possessed by the spirit of his father, Tseren Zaarin, and he crawled on the ground as the ongod entered his body. Lea and I were not privy to the information that Tseren Zaarin shared with the group of shamans, because we are laypeople and outsiders, but it was quite a thing to behold. While the shamans were shamanizing a rain storm had begun. When the shamans took a break and we left the prayer house where the shamanizing of the evening had been taking place, the rain stopped, and two rainbows stretched directly over the grounds (and I was able to run to the end of one!62), a supposed manifestation of Tseren Zaarin’s spirit.
Chanar in Bayan Uul amongst the members of Tengereen Suld was very interesting because it was both a Khalk and Buryat event, but while there were shamans of all three color identifications present and varying ethnicities, a great deal of the costume and most of the ritualistic practices varied very little.
Figure 10.
While in a small, enclosed space full of shamans calling their ongods in full regalia, it’s very difficult at times to remember that you are awake. Indeed, the headdress63 alone has a surreal affectation, it seems otherworldly, and indeed, that is the purpose it is designed for, as the headdress is what confuses potential unfamiliar or malevolent spirits from finding the shamans’ face during spirit travel. The Buriyat headdress is “Abagaldei, a monstrous mask of hide, wood, or metal, on which is painted an enormous beard.”64
Each individual “shaman’s chanar” ritual was a total of three days in length. The commencement ceremony acknowledging the opening of the sky door was an evening’s length, so Lea, Zulaa and I got to witness the magic that takes place during the first two days and nights of chanar for two shamans, a male shaman or zairan and a female shaman or ugdan. For three whole days and nights shamans “doing” chanar are continually chased by children65 around the a ritual fire66 and the trees that they use to climb while possessed by their ongod67 (this occurs on the third evening, so I didn’t get to see it myself) calling on their ongod.
On the second evening, after a whole day and night of sporadic partial possession, the shamans are usually successful in prolonging possession extensively enough to dance on broken glass barefoot, and then climb half-way up the ladder to the platform on which an offering of boiled sheep’s back is placed. 68 There are two platforms69, one for each shaman “making” chanar, the male shaman dancing on the easterly side, and the women on the west.70 After the possessed shaman has ecstatically been dancing on glass for some time (I saw a shaman dancing on glass for approximately 10 minutes) she climbs the ladder and then the ongod usually leaves the shaman’s body and the shaman blacks out. It was a frightening sight watching unconscious shamans falling off of ladders, but both times they landed in a specially prepared felt-blankets held by three strong men. The shaman is grabbed in the blanket, and three men carry her running between the trees71, until arriving back at a spot in close proximity to the original platform, where the shaman is dropped, and returning to consciousness, exhaustedly hobbles to a congregation area to have her feet inspected. I was told that both of shamans’ feet were unharmed, but I didn’t get to see them myself, as there was a crowd of family members and high ranking shamans whose examination took precedent over mine.
I didn’t get to talk to that many shamans while I was actually observing the ritual (they were mostly too busy participating), and it was important for me to return to the city to conduct further interviews with urban shamans so that I would have a basis for comparison after witnessing chanar and speaking with them informally and formally there. Unfortunately because of this I was unable to view the final evening of one set of shaman’s chanar, but I had material from observations (although I didn’t always understand what I was seeing, and Zulaa didn’t always know what was going on either, nor feel comfortable talking about what was going on during the rituals when she did at times) over a meager three days at Harhira to proceed.
An American in Mongolia: Part XVI
Research findings and analysis
May 9-16, 2008: In the city
My first week conducting field research in Ulaanbaatar I met with an urban shaman named Zorigtbataar who practices in a ger in front of Gandan Monastery42, right behind a store that specializes in the sale of Russian groceries. When I had told residents of Ulaanbaatar in passing that I was going to try and meet with him, many people told me something along the lines of “You’re studying shamanism, why do you want to meet with someone who is clearly a showman?” I showed up at his ger with my translator and an open mind going into the interview nonetheless. You see, dear reader, I believe in magic, and I enjoy pleasant surprises.
There is a fence that surrounds the two gers that this urban shaman uses for his practice. I arrived there with my translator in the midst of what appeared to be a serious construction project (I was told a rumor wherein the lamas of the most central monastery in Mongolia had requested that Zorigtbaatar not practice shamanism in a ger directly in front of their premises.) The shaman appeared to be building a permanent sedentary structure, as there was a big pit directly alongside the main ger (although the two were the same size.) There were scores of people waiting to be granted an audience by this shaman43, and one of his women attendants, (clad in what I can only describe as something vaguely reminiscent of a del that called forth images of modern dance competitions, all sparkly and polyester and bright pink,) told us that we could speak with the shaman in a few minutes.
When we went inside, I noticed that there were three other young women wearing the same costume in various colors. The ger was one of the strangest places I have ever been to because of the range and sheer mass of bizarre objects it contained. Directly to the left and right of the entrance, there were two taxidermied eagles, their full wingspan extended. Hanging from the latticework along the left side of the entrance was a medieval style coat of Mongolian leather armor. Adjacent to the entrance, to the right, there was a giant screen television set that was playing a Japanese knock-off of Britney Spears’s seminal classic music video “Hit Me Baby One More Time.” Schoolgirl costumes and cheesy choreography were not compromised.
There were many things that looked like antiques from other parts of Asia, posters of Buddhist deities, shamanic paraphernalia44, as well as some dramatic looking indiscernible objects that looked like they had come out from the darkest recesses of a closet that might come from a nightmare a circus might have. Cluttering almost every surface, these objects created a sensory overload for me, and they co-occupied the space with a variety of goods one often sees in tourist shops in Ulaanbaatar. There were two altars across from the ger door that were covered in butter candles, one of the chests carved very beautifully with a reindeer scene that evoked petroglyphic art, painted in bright colors, and to the left of the altars was an ornately carved throne in fine Zanabazar45-ian form, behind which several shamans’ drums or hitz46 and costumes hung, inanimate. To the left of the throne was a leather wall hanging of Chinggis Khan, complete with coarse black hair glued to all of the right places.
The Mongolian shaman’s costume varies based upon ethnicity, color designation, and from shaman to shaman as it is created under the direction of the shaman’s ongod, and it has three basic components: headdress, del and tashoor47 which all become “alive” during a ritual when a shaman is in trance or partial possession.
However, this particular costume looked much more like the kind that I had seen the ancient shamans (professional dancers) wearing in a tourist show when I first arrived in Ulaanbaatar––meets day-glow powwow wear. The three versions hanging behind the throne came in an assortment of unusually jazzy colors had the basic components of the shaman’s costume I had become familiar with, with snakes dangling48 (in this case showy tassels) from them, mirrors49 (usually a necklace strung with khaddag, but in this case made of plastic and sewn onto the front.) But it was wholly unlike any costume I had seen thus far because it was a short vest, not a long, long-sleeved traditional style shaman’s del.
Zorigtbataar came in long enough after I arrived in this space that I had an opportunity to make notes of and digest some of my surroundings. He was clad in western style cowboy boots, blue jeans, and a plaid shirt, with two little braids that were wrapped in leather string to keep them from falling out of his curly black hair. When he sat down on the throne, one of the women in the matching costumes came and put a shorter, version on him that matched hers, of a more typically masculine cut and style.
I introduced myself, and he began by telling me about his experiences going to shamanic gatherings in the U.S., next winter he said he would be in Santa Fe, California. He told me that it would be alright for me to ask him some questions, so I proceeded to do so. Zorigtbaatar has been a shaman for around 20 years, and he is a white shaman from Tov aimag. Unfortunately the few times that he answered a question directly, after I would probe him for a little bit further clarification he would change his answer. He told me that his ongod never left his head; that he had no teacher, and then later that he had had a teacher who was a lama; that he didn’t go into trance; and that he didn’t have shamans’ sickness, but he did have a rather outrageous origin story. He told me of an experience wherein he was wandering in the Gobi while in the army with no water while his two companions wasted away. He thought that he was going to die too, lying in the beating sun, parched, when a vision of cosmic creatures dressed in silver came to him in a dream, and he woke up alive.
As open as my mind was going into the interview, and even throughout (I thought perhaps that he was misunderstanding my questions, or at least that he believed most of what he told me) I became skeptical of his honesty and soundness of mind when the interview disintegrated into Zorigtbaatar talking about a book that he had written that was a bestseller in France, even though there was only one copy translated into French in the world, and he didn’t know its title in Mongolian either. Then came the numbers. He spoke of numbers that he could interpret that came from the eternal heavens from what he referred to as his “angels.” He interpreted the numbers into a kind of cryptic verse that my translator could not understand in Mongolian, except for this poetic prophesy:
Have to let people know about
The people from space that will come
The people who created earth
But people brought trouble to earth
Therefore trouble is coming
Big storm and flood, the black flood.
He continued,
You are sky messenger so I’m happy to help you, maybe you can deliver message of the shaman to the world—in trouble. I am also sky messenger. There are many shamans in Mongolia but I am the only one to deliver the message. Earth trouble is going to be first of all in America, so now many shamans in America. So only shamans know/can help with the Earth trouble.
My translator Zulaa was frightened that the tea (sudtai-tsai) one of his assistants had served us was poisoned or drugged, because at the time when it was served to us, after I had tried to conclude the interview, Zorigtbaatar had allegedly tried convince my translator and I to become his students “Because you have strong energy” and are “pretty girls” for the last half-hour. He did this while my translator merely nodded and tried to casually disengage. When we finally got up to leave (I was not included in the last half hour of conversation, but it was related to me later), my translator asked Zorigtbaatar in passing about the symbolic value of the eagles that decorated his entryway, to which he replied “Do you want to see a real eagle?” So we followed him to his second ger, his hands full of raw meat, to meet an eagle that was chained inside, looking reasonably perturbed at its imprisonment. Then, we left, and my translator laughed a great deal because she did not think that Zorigtbaatar was an authentic shaman at all. But I was uncertain, because he seemed to speak with the conviction of a man possessed, so to speak. When I discussed the interview with my academic advisor Bumochir later, he suggested that perhaps Zorigtbaatar50 was a teshren, or merely a showman, but most likely one who would fit into the “non-conventional” category. (Interview with Zorigtbaatar, 5-13-08)
May 9-16, 2008: In the city
Figure 4.
My first week conducting field research in Ulaanbaatar I met with an urban shaman named Zorigtbataar who practices in a ger in front of Gandan Monastery42, right behind a store that specializes in the sale of Russian groceries. When I had told residents of Ulaanbaatar in passing that I was going to try and meet with him, many people told me something along the lines of “You’re studying shamanism, why do you want to meet with someone who is clearly a showman?” I showed up at his ger with my translator and an open mind going into the interview nonetheless. You see, dear reader, I believe in magic, and I enjoy pleasant surprises.
There is a fence that surrounds the two gers that this urban shaman uses for his practice. I arrived there with my translator in the midst of what appeared to be a serious construction project (I was told a rumor wherein the lamas of the most central monastery in Mongolia had requested that Zorigtbaatar not practice shamanism in a ger directly in front of their premises.) The shaman appeared to be building a permanent sedentary structure, as there was a big pit directly alongside the main ger (although the two were the same size.) There were scores of people waiting to be granted an audience by this shaman43, and one of his women attendants, (clad in what I can only describe as something vaguely reminiscent of a del that called forth images of modern dance competitions, all sparkly and polyester and bright pink,) told us that we could speak with the shaman in a few minutes.
When we went inside, I noticed that there were three other young women wearing the same costume in various colors. The ger was one of the strangest places I have ever been to because of the range and sheer mass of bizarre objects it contained. Directly to the left and right of the entrance, there were two taxidermied eagles, their full wingspan extended. Hanging from the latticework along the left side of the entrance was a medieval style coat of Mongolian leather armor. Adjacent to the entrance, to the right, there was a giant screen television set that was playing a Japanese knock-off of Britney Spears’s seminal classic music video “Hit Me Baby One More Time.” Schoolgirl costumes and cheesy choreography were not compromised.
There were many things that looked like antiques from other parts of Asia, posters of Buddhist deities, shamanic paraphernalia44, as well as some dramatic looking indiscernible objects that looked like they had come out from the darkest recesses of a closet that might come from a nightmare a circus might have. Cluttering almost every surface, these objects created a sensory overload for me, and they co-occupied the space with a variety of goods one often sees in tourist shops in Ulaanbaatar. There were two altars across from the ger door that were covered in butter candles, one of the chests carved very beautifully with a reindeer scene that evoked petroglyphic art, painted in bright colors, and to the left of the altars was an ornately carved throne in fine Zanabazar45-ian form, behind which several shamans’ drums or hitz46 and costumes hung, inanimate. To the left of the throne was a leather wall hanging of Chinggis Khan, complete with coarse black hair glued to all of the right places.
The Mongolian shaman’s costume varies based upon ethnicity, color designation, and from shaman to shaman as it is created under the direction of the shaman’s ongod, and it has three basic components: headdress, del and tashoor47 which all become “alive” during a ritual when a shaman is in trance or partial possession.
Figure 5.
Figure 7.
(some other prints I can't find my photographs of...)
Figure 8.
However, this particular costume looked much more like the kind that I had seen the ancient shamans (professional dancers) wearing in a tourist show when I first arrived in Ulaanbaatar––meets day-glow powwow wear. The three versions hanging behind the throne came in an assortment of unusually jazzy colors had the basic components of the shaman’s costume I had become familiar with, with snakes dangling48 (in this case showy tassels) from them, mirrors49 (usually a necklace strung with khaddag, but in this case made of plastic and sewn onto the front.) But it was wholly unlike any costume I had seen thus far because it was a short vest, not a long, long-sleeved traditional style shaman’s del.
Zorigtbataar came in long enough after I arrived in this space that I had an opportunity to make notes of and digest some of my surroundings. He was clad in western style cowboy boots, blue jeans, and a plaid shirt, with two little braids that were wrapped in leather string to keep them from falling out of his curly black hair. When he sat down on the throne, one of the women in the matching costumes came and put a shorter, version on him that matched hers, of a more typically masculine cut and style.
Figure 9.
I introduced myself, and he began by telling me about his experiences going to shamanic gatherings in the U.S., next winter he said he would be in Santa Fe, California. He told me that it would be alright for me to ask him some questions, so I proceeded to do so. Zorigtbaatar has been a shaman for around 20 years, and he is a white shaman from Tov aimag. Unfortunately the few times that he answered a question directly, after I would probe him for a little bit further clarification he would change his answer. He told me that his ongod never left his head; that he had no teacher, and then later that he had had a teacher who was a lama; that he didn’t go into trance; and that he didn’t have shamans’ sickness, but he did have a rather outrageous origin story. He told me of an experience wherein he was wandering in the Gobi while in the army with no water while his two companions wasted away. He thought that he was going to die too, lying in the beating sun, parched, when a vision of cosmic creatures dressed in silver came to him in a dream, and he woke up alive.
As open as my mind was going into the interview, and even throughout (I thought perhaps that he was misunderstanding my questions, or at least that he believed most of what he told me) I became skeptical of his honesty and soundness of mind when the interview disintegrated into Zorigtbaatar talking about a book that he had written that was a bestseller in France, even though there was only one copy translated into French in the world, and he didn’t know its title in Mongolian either. Then came the numbers. He spoke of numbers that he could interpret that came from the eternal heavens from what he referred to as his “angels.” He interpreted the numbers into a kind of cryptic verse that my translator could not understand in Mongolian, except for this poetic prophesy:
Have to let people know about
The people from space that will come
The people who created earth
But people brought trouble to earth
Therefore trouble is coming
Big storm and flood, the black flood.
He continued,
You are sky messenger so I’m happy to help you, maybe you can deliver message of the shaman to the world—in trouble. I am also sky messenger. There are many shamans in Mongolia but I am the only one to deliver the message. Earth trouble is going to be first of all in America, so now many shamans in America. So only shamans know/can help with the Earth trouble.
My translator Zulaa was frightened that the tea (sudtai-tsai) one of his assistants had served us was poisoned or drugged, because at the time when it was served to us, after I had tried to conclude the interview, Zorigtbaatar had allegedly tried convince my translator and I to become his students “Because you have strong energy” and are “pretty girls” for the last half-hour. He did this while my translator merely nodded and tried to casually disengage. When we finally got up to leave (I was not included in the last half hour of conversation, but it was related to me later), my translator asked Zorigtbaatar in passing about the symbolic value of the eagles that decorated his entryway, to which he replied “Do you want to see a real eagle?” So we followed him to his second ger, his hands full of raw meat, to meet an eagle that was chained inside, looking reasonably perturbed at its imprisonment. Then, we left, and my translator laughed a great deal because she did not think that Zorigtbaatar was an authentic shaman at all. But I was uncertain, because he seemed to speak with the conviction of a man possessed, so to speak. When I discussed the interview with my academic advisor Bumochir later, he suggested that perhaps Zorigtbaatar50 was a teshren, or merely a showman, but most likely one who would fit into the “non-conventional” category. (Interview with Zorigtbaatar, 5-13-08)
Saturday, May 22, 2010
An American in Mongolia: Part XV
Discussion of research methodology
Before embarking upon my month long Mongolian fieldwork period of intensive shamanic ritual observation and interviews in Ulaanbaatar, Onderkhan, Khentii and Bayan Uul, Dornod, with my translator Zulaa and my traveling partner Lea (who was comparing embodiment rituals in Buddhist Tsam dance and Shamanism) I developed a number of guiding research questions. Some of these guiding research questions were later formulated to be questions appropriate to pose directly to a shaman during an the beginning of an interview. The questions were devised through favorable and less favorable (that is, more or less informative) responses I received during my early interviews, along with the help of multiple advisors, all Mongolian anthropologists at the National University in Ulaanbaatar. After a shaman answered this initial set of questions, I could decide which more specific questions I should ask from there. Of course people sometimes launched into a lengthy monologue of their life’s story before I could even begin asking questions, and often these monologues answered my questions before I even asked.
At an early stage in the interviewing process a tension emerged. I had an interest in accruing very specific data that would support a thesis detailing the primary differences or similarities between shamans practicing in radically different settings (the countryside and the city) and the factors that determined these discrepancies and overlaps. I found that certain (pre-) prepared questions that were instrumental in supporting my thesis were inflammatory or offensive to some parties and were best not asked. Sometimes I needed to use my best judgment and steer away from these kinds of questions. These situations were few, (although I felt at times that I may have put my pinky toe just a wee bit over the line) and the occasions that they did occur it was always when I was asking questions regarding shamanic ethics. I began with an etic approach and quickly switched gears into an emic approach38, defining shamanic ethics based upon what the anthropologists told me and what the shamans told me.
The anthropologists told me that a real shaman would be candid about how they became a shaman, how becoming a shaman has changed their lives, and how becoming a shaman was only a choice insofar as they must either become a shaman, or they must face supernatural consequences that would lead to physically dangerous consequences. This idea of being a real shaman came up many times in conversations with Mongolian anthropologists, but also with laypeople in Ulaanbaatar. Mongolians in general seemed to think that interviewing anyone who I met who claimed to be a shaman, or someone who I was referred to by others as a good potential interview subject was impractical and futile, because I would inevitably be interviewing people who they didn’t view as real shamans.
This perception that I came across time and time again was very intriguing to me, because the general anthropological literature that I had read up until that point regarding shamanism was pretty inclusive in what qualified as shamanic practices, and trickery and foolery were included in that broad definition. Because of this intriguing, culturally specific contradiction between the familiar literature in the field and the skepticism of Mongolian laypeople and academics as well as shamans themselves39, ethics and authenticity ended up being the focus of my interviews. By that I mean I was often inquiring if shamans had some accountability to a community, which was really a question of ethics, because if the shaman held no accountability for their practices and were powerful or popular, there was the potential that a shaman could do harm in a community. Whether it was a community of other shamans or a community of laypeople who sought their help was of interest, but so long as there was some community to answer to it didn’t matter. If a shaman avoided that question, or called every other shaman in the world a fake when I brought it up, it would usually lead to a question about charging tariffs, casting curses and the make-up of the shaman’s clientele, which got at the Mongolian perception of authenticity as well as what laypeople viewed as dangerous practices.
The anthropologists told me that some real shamans performed for tourists, charged a wad of cash, and were truly in communication with the realm of ancestral spirits (and/or land and water spirits), but that this was very rare. If a shaman was charging a lot of money, I should be wary that she might not be a shaman at all. Many shamans in the city have day jobs, and many shamans in the countryside are full time herders or schoolteachers. After skirting the issue sometimes for five minutes or so during an interview with a shaman, I had a few testy moments when I asked: point blank “Do you charge a tariff?” To which the shaman would almost always retort “No!”40 at times apparently aghast at my audacity to even imagine such a thing. But nothing seriously negative occurred during an interview; even in these tense, potentially provocative instances it may offer the reader peace of mind to know that all of the shamans whom I asked about curses shuddered and denounced them.
The first question set that I devised was designed to verify that the urban shaman met the fundamental qualifications of being a shaman, although I ended up using these questions in interviews with countryside shamans as well. Said qualifications are not for me to call my own, they were outlined by ethnographers of Mongolian shamanism Professor O. Purev in his book Mongolian Shamanism and I think that they are generally agreed upon within the academic community in Mongolia because they were also suggested to me by biological anthropologist Erdene Myagmar during a meeting at the Mongolian National University, and later by cultural anthropologist Bumochir Dulam. Erdene helped me to come up with ideas to refine, around which I should form a shamanic qualification inquiry.41
Once these quality questions were answered I could proceed with a more specific question set. The queries that followed were generally concerned with amassing the subjects’ own expressed principles, who they felt they were accountable to, and also with helping me to navigate the strikingly sundry shamanic aesthetic. Within Ulaanbaatar the aesthetic or artistic aspect of personal shamanic representation seems to be concerned with appearing to be a certain kind of individual to attract the attention of the much-desired consumer of spirituality. For example, ostentatiously shamanic (that is, garish and performative and shamelessly self-promoting) was one aesthetic that I observed amongst city shamans. From there I would often attempt to observe the ritual of the informant, sometimes by invitation, and sometimes to no avail. I decided that I could far more effectively analyze the information obtained during an interview if I had a point of reference for the sometimes convoluted or befuddling or remarkable responses I received to my questions based in the observance of an actual ritual of the subject. If I had the opportunity to observe the ritual of an informant, subsequently I could see for myself the consistencies and contradictions (and sometimes just plain poorly explained processes) between ritual and interview. The rituals in the city often took place at the subject’s home ger, and in the countryside all of the ritual that I observed was in Bayan Uul, Dornod during chanar at the Harhira ritual grounds. This helped me to attain a better general understanding of what being a shaman meant to my subject, and if there was praxis (within my limited frame-of-reference.) Then, I could return to my anthropological texts, and see what the subject’s views meant in relationship to the general academic community’s views, and the Mongolian community’s views and go forward with my evaluations.
Towards the end of my research period, I began to explore public acuities of shamanism in Ulaanbaatar and in Mongolia today, first conducting an interview with a layman who identified as an atheist, whose granddaughter was about to undergo shamanic initiation rights in Bayan Uul. Back in Ulaanbaatar, I interviewed the director of a performance intended for an audience of tourists that included an artistic representation of shamanic ritual. Finally, I handed out a survey at the Mongolian Artist’s Union (a place where I have spent a great deal of time, learning to craft traditional style Mongolian woodblocks to illustrate this paper with visual reference points during discussions of ritual that include important instruments, costumes, and paraphernalia), inquisitively inquiring about that particular demographic’s understanding of shamanic activity within the city and the countryside currently. The results of all of these scholastic ventures were equally intriguing, and will be discussed and analyzed within the next section of this paper.
Before embarking upon my month long Mongolian fieldwork period of intensive shamanic ritual observation and interviews in Ulaanbaatar, Onderkhan, Khentii and Bayan Uul, Dornod, with my translator Zulaa and my traveling partner Lea (who was comparing embodiment rituals in Buddhist Tsam dance and Shamanism) I developed a number of guiding research questions. Some of these guiding research questions were later formulated to be questions appropriate to pose directly to a shaman during an the beginning of an interview. The questions were devised through favorable and less favorable (that is, more or less informative) responses I received during my early interviews, along with the help of multiple advisors, all Mongolian anthropologists at the National University in Ulaanbaatar. After a shaman answered this initial set of questions, I could decide which more specific questions I should ask from there. Of course people sometimes launched into a lengthy monologue of their life’s story before I could even begin asking questions, and often these monologues answered my questions before I even asked.
At an early stage in the interviewing process a tension emerged. I had an interest in accruing very specific data that would support a thesis detailing the primary differences or similarities between shamans practicing in radically different settings (the countryside and the city) and the factors that determined these discrepancies and overlaps. I found that certain (pre-) prepared questions that were instrumental in supporting my thesis were inflammatory or offensive to some parties and were best not asked. Sometimes I needed to use my best judgment and steer away from these kinds of questions. These situations were few, (although I felt at times that I may have put my pinky toe just a wee bit over the line) and the occasions that they did occur it was always when I was asking questions regarding shamanic ethics. I began with an etic approach and quickly switched gears into an emic approach38, defining shamanic ethics based upon what the anthropologists told me and what the shamans told me.
The anthropologists told me that a real shaman would be candid about how they became a shaman, how becoming a shaman has changed their lives, and how becoming a shaman was only a choice insofar as they must either become a shaman, or they must face supernatural consequences that would lead to physically dangerous consequences. This idea of being a real shaman came up many times in conversations with Mongolian anthropologists, but also with laypeople in Ulaanbaatar. Mongolians in general seemed to think that interviewing anyone who I met who claimed to be a shaman, or someone who I was referred to by others as a good potential interview subject was impractical and futile, because I would inevitably be interviewing people who they didn’t view as real shamans.
This perception that I came across time and time again was very intriguing to me, because the general anthropological literature that I had read up until that point regarding shamanism was pretty inclusive in what qualified as shamanic practices, and trickery and foolery were included in that broad definition. Because of this intriguing, culturally specific contradiction between the familiar literature in the field and the skepticism of Mongolian laypeople and academics as well as shamans themselves39, ethics and authenticity ended up being the focus of my interviews. By that I mean I was often inquiring if shamans had some accountability to a community, which was really a question of ethics, because if the shaman held no accountability for their practices and were powerful or popular, there was the potential that a shaman could do harm in a community. Whether it was a community of other shamans or a community of laypeople who sought their help was of interest, but so long as there was some community to answer to it didn’t matter. If a shaman avoided that question, or called every other shaman in the world a fake when I brought it up, it would usually lead to a question about charging tariffs, casting curses and the make-up of the shaman’s clientele, which got at the Mongolian perception of authenticity as well as what laypeople viewed as dangerous practices.
The anthropologists told me that some real shamans performed for tourists, charged a wad of cash, and were truly in communication with the realm of ancestral spirits (and/or land and water spirits), but that this was very rare. If a shaman was charging a lot of money, I should be wary that she might not be a shaman at all. Many shamans in the city have day jobs, and many shamans in the countryside are full time herders or schoolteachers. After skirting the issue sometimes for five minutes or so during an interview with a shaman, I had a few testy moments when I asked: point blank “Do you charge a tariff?” To which the shaman would almost always retort “No!”40 at times apparently aghast at my audacity to even imagine such a thing. But nothing seriously negative occurred during an interview; even in these tense, potentially provocative instances it may offer the reader peace of mind to know that all of the shamans whom I asked about curses shuddered and denounced them.
The first question set that I devised was designed to verify that the urban shaman met the fundamental qualifications of being a shaman, although I ended up using these questions in interviews with countryside shamans as well. Said qualifications are not for me to call my own, they were outlined by ethnographers of Mongolian shamanism Professor O. Purev in his book Mongolian Shamanism and I think that they are generally agreed upon within the academic community in Mongolia because they were also suggested to me by biological anthropologist Erdene Myagmar during a meeting at the Mongolian National University, and later by cultural anthropologist Bumochir Dulam. Erdene helped me to come up with ideas to refine, around which I should form a shamanic qualification inquiry.41
Once these quality questions were answered I could proceed with a more specific question set. The queries that followed were generally concerned with amassing the subjects’ own expressed principles, who they felt they were accountable to, and also with helping me to navigate the strikingly sundry shamanic aesthetic. Within Ulaanbaatar the aesthetic or artistic aspect of personal shamanic representation seems to be concerned with appearing to be a certain kind of individual to attract the attention of the much-desired consumer of spirituality. For example, ostentatiously shamanic (that is, garish and performative and shamelessly self-promoting) was one aesthetic that I observed amongst city shamans. From there I would often attempt to observe the ritual of the informant, sometimes by invitation, and sometimes to no avail. I decided that I could far more effectively analyze the information obtained during an interview if I had a point of reference for the sometimes convoluted or befuddling or remarkable responses I received to my questions based in the observance of an actual ritual of the subject. If I had the opportunity to observe the ritual of an informant, subsequently I could see for myself the consistencies and contradictions (and sometimes just plain poorly explained processes) between ritual and interview. The rituals in the city often took place at the subject’s home ger, and in the countryside all of the ritual that I observed was in Bayan Uul, Dornod during chanar at the Harhira ritual grounds. This helped me to attain a better general understanding of what being a shaman meant to my subject, and if there was praxis (within my limited frame-of-reference.) Then, I could return to my anthropological texts, and see what the subject’s views meant in relationship to the general academic community’s views, and the Mongolian community’s views and go forward with my evaluations.
Towards the end of my research period, I began to explore public acuities of shamanism in Ulaanbaatar and in Mongolia today, first conducting an interview with a layman who identified as an atheist, whose granddaughter was about to undergo shamanic initiation rights in Bayan Uul. Back in Ulaanbaatar, I interviewed the director of a performance intended for an audience of tourists that included an artistic representation of shamanic ritual. Finally, I handed out a survey at the Mongolian Artist’s Union (a place where I have spent a great deal of time, learning to craft traditional style Mongolian woodblocks to illustrate this paper with visual reference points during discussions of ritual that include important instruments, costumes, and paraphernalia), inquisitively inquiring about that particular demographic’s understanding of shamanic activity within the city and the countryside currently. The results of all of these scholastic ventures were equally intriguing, and will be discussed and analyzed within the next section of this paper.
Friday, May 21, 2010
An American in Mongolia: Part XIV
The shaman in Ulaanbaatar, which has been influenced by Soviet culture and is now being influenced by Western culture
The phenomenon of the urban shaman is a very relevant field of study in Mongolia currently, while both more and more people are moving to Ulaanbaatar, soum and aimag (province and township) centers increasing the likelihood of shamans in their midst, while simultaneously increasing the demand for shamanic guidance in those areas. Urban migration has been increasing steadily since the early nineties and before, and this often looks in Mongolia like rural nomads moving their gers to the outskirts of Ulaanbaatar (creating ger districts), and attempting to continue their lives in much the same way as in the countryside. The problem is that in Ulaanbaatar there is a relatively concentrated population (it contains approximately ½ of Mongolia’s 2.5 million population.) Therefore there is also a greater demand for pastures, as well as higher pollution and herd mortality (in the ger districts most people burn coal and old tires for most of the year to stay warm, etc.), and less possibility for subsistence herding, creating the necessity of taking up occupations that provide wages (and often don’t exist.) Because the urban situation is less than ideal for herding animals and jobs are scarce, many people negotiate their time between the countryside (and perhaps family members that have been left behind there) and Ulaanbaatar. Additionally, for the first time in centuries there is the presence of commercial foreign interests in Mongolia, beyond direct imperial powers (Manchu, Russian)—tourists, mining companies36, international NGO’s, missionaries, etc. creating a new demographic landscape. Most importantly, unless a shaman’s family has lived for generations in the area where Ulaanbaatar now stands, the shaman will have to go to the countryside every summer (shamans in Mongolia call this “making chanar”) to become more powerful and to reestablish contact with their ancestral, land, and water spirits. It is not an ideal situation for shamanic practice (keeping in mind the Mongolian idea of shamanic authenticity) on the one hand and on the other hand the demand is high on several fronts.37
Remarkably, I have been able to find no published research analyzing the specific phenomenon of urban shamanism in Mongolia using qualitative and quantitative data (though I have found an article examining the phenomenon in Siberia by Caroline Humphrey.) Now that Mongolia has entered a period of democratization, nationalism is back and that means people are getting interested in their ethnic origins, and their cultural heritage, which extends to traditional religious practices as well. Therefore, a comparative study of rural vs. urban shamans in Mongolia would not only be groundbreaking in that it would shed some light upon a(n arguably) newly emerging trend and virtually undocumented phenomenon, the research might also serve as a tool for those urbanities who are now becoming re-acquainted with their national historical spiritual roots, are spiritually curious, or need guidance as to what they might be able to expect upon visiting a shaman in the city (vs. the countryside), and also what that shaman might expect of them.
The phenomenon of the urban shaman is a very relevant field of study in Mongolia currently, while both more and more people are moving to Ulaanbaatar, soum and aimag (province and township) centers increasing the likelihood of shamans in their midst, while simultaneously increasing the demand for shamanic guidance in those areas. Urban migration has been increasing steadily since the early nineties and before, and this often looks in Mongolia like rural nomads moving their gers to the outskirts of Ulaanbaatar (creating ger districts), and attempting to continue their lives in much the same way as in the countryside. The problem is that in Ulaanbaatar there is a relatively concentrated population (it contains approximately ½ of Mongolia’s 2.5 million population.) Therefore there is also a greater demand for pastures, as well as higher pollution and herd mortality (in the ger districts most people burn coal and old tires for most of the year to stay warm, etc.), and less possibility for subsistence herding, creating the necessity of taking up occupations that provide wages (and often don’t exist.) Because the urban situation is less than ideal for herding animals and jobs are scarce, many people negotiate their time between the countryside (and perhaps family members that have been left behind there) and Ulaanbaatar. Additionally, for the first time in centuries there is the presence of commercial foreign interests in Mongolia, beyond direct imperial powers (Manchu, Russian)—tourists, mining companies36, international NGO’s, missionaries, etc. creating a new demographic landscape. Most importantly, unless a shaman’s family has lived for generations in the area where Ulaanbaatar now stands, the shaman will have to go to the countryside every summer (shamans in Mongolia call this “making chanar”) to become more powerful and to reestablish contact with their ancestral, land, and water spirits. It is not an ideal situation for shamanic practice (keeping in mind the Mongolian idea of shamanic authenticity) on the one hand and on the other hand the demand is high on several fronts.37
Remarkably, I have been able to find no published research analyzing the specific phenomenon of urban shamanism in Mongolia using qualitative and quantitative data (though I have found an article examining the phenomenon in Siberia by Caroline Humphrey.) Now that Mongolia has entered a period of democratization, nationalism is back and that means people are getting interested in their ethnic origins, and their cultural heritage, which extends to traditional religious practices as well. Therefore, a comparative study of rural vs. urban shamans in Mongolia would not only be groundbreaking in that it would shed some light upon a(n arguably) newly emerging trend and virtually undocumented phenomenon, the research might also serve as a tool for those urbanities who are now becoming re-acquainted with their national historical spiritual roots, are spiritually curious, or need guidance as to what they might be able to expect upon visiting a shaman in the city (vs. the countryside), and also what that shaman might expect of them.
An American in Mongolia: Part XIII
Mongolian anthropologists’ definitions of the “authentic” shaman
In Mongolia, a shaman is defined as a human being who is chosen by a spirit to be the link between worlds because she is “talented, clever, and moral.”28 Mongolians, despite being traditionally strict adherents to the animistic tradition of worshipping the eternal blue sky or tenger, say there is no such thing as a “heavenly sign”; ancestral spirits alone can chose people to become shamans. When the chosen shaman (hopefully) learns that she has been chosen she will experience a number of symptoms that are recognizable to Mongolians as “shaman’s sickness.”29 As an interviewee poignantly put it,
I was 17 years old while still in high school and I would black out. My parents were very worried and took me to the doctor but no diagnosis. I had very bad dreams, and some places I would go I could feel the bad things that were happening there. My parents took me to a shaman who is now my teacher. I didn’t want to be a shaman. I thought it was very funny. I didn’t believe it. But the bad dreams I could no longer separate from reality and I was going insane. Now I’m ok.30
In order to complete shamanic initiation and gain more power yearly from then on, the shaman must undergo chanar31, a three day ritual in the summer during which a shaman is partially possessed32 continually over the course of three days and nights, under the guidance of a teacher, who is a more experienced shaman. As a result of initiation, the new shaman will develop skills with the aid of her spirit, either in healing sickness, casting curses or curing curses. The ancestral spirits (usually of deceased shamans), according to Mongolian cosmology, are able to learn new abilities and increase powers in the realm that they typically occupy which they can impart to the shaman who they possess. Alternately, the shaman may gain the knowledge of new skills or increase their own power directly when their own (1/5-1/9 according to both gender and the cosmologies of different ethnic groups within the political boarders of Mongolia) soul travels into another realm. The guiding spirit who initiates contact with the shaman may be of several origins, either a protector spirit of a piece of land or a body of water that used to have a human or animal or plant form or the ancestral33 spirit of the shaman. Thereafter, the shaman’s (usually) ancestral spirit or ongod34, as well as local spirits are appeased with offerings of milk, vodka, and meat three times a month according to the lunar calendar (these rituals fall on the 9th, 19th, and 29th of each month of the Gregorian calendar.) Other days of the month the shaman may ask her own ancestral spirit or others to perform tasks during ritual35s, and ongods are interested in helping because of a personal investment, which is appropriate, because shamans are more accountable to human needs than spirit needs.
In Mongolia, a shaman is defined as a human being who is chosen by a spirit to be the link between worlds because she is “talented, clever, and moral.”28 Mongolians, despite being traditionally strict adherents to the animistic tradition of worshipping the eternal blue sky or tenger, say there is no such thing as a “heavenly sign”; ancestral spirits alone can chose people to become shamans. When the chosen shaman (hopefully) learns that she has been chosen she will experience a number of symptoms that are recognizable to Mongolians as “shaman’s sickness.”29 As an interviewee poignantly put it,
I was 17 years old while still in high school and I would black out. My parents were very worried and took me to the doctor but no diagnosis. I had very bad dreams, and some places I would go I could feel the bad things that were happening there. My parents took me to a shaman who is now my teacher. I didn’t want to be a shaman. I thought it was very funny. I didn’t believe it. But the bad dreams I could no longer separate from reality and I was going insane. Now I’m ok.30
In order to complete shamanic initiation and gain more power yearly from then on, the shaman must undergo chanar31, a three day ritual in the summer during which a shaman is partially possessed32 continually over the course of three days and nights, under the guidance of a teacher, who is a more experienced shaman. As a result of initiation, the new shaman will develop skills with the aid of her spirit, either in healing sickness, casting curses or curing curses. The ancestral spirits (usually of deceased shamans), according to Mongolian cosmology, are able to learn new abilities and increase powers in the realm that they typically occupy which they can impart to the shaman who they possess. Alternately, the shaman may gain the knowledge of new skills or increase their own power directly when their own (1/5-1/9 according to both gender and the cosmologies of different ethnic groups within the political boarders of Mongolia) soul travels into another realm. The guiding spirit who initiates contact with the shaman may be of several origins, either a protector spirit of a piece of land or a body of water that used to have a human or animal or plant form or the ancestral33 spirit of the shaman. Thereafter, the shaman’s (usually) ancestral spirit or ongod34, as well as local spirits are appeased with offerings of milk, vodka, and meat three times a month according to the lunar calendar (these rituals fall on the 9th, 19th, and 29th of each month of the Gregorian calendar.) Other days of the month the shaman may ask her own ancestral spirit or others to perform tasks during ritual35s, and ongods are interested in helping because of a personal investment, which is appropriate, because shamans are more accountable to human needs than spirit needs.
Thursday, May 20, 2010
An American in Mongolia: Part XII
The shaman according to the anthropological canon and the Western public
According to Dolfyn, the North American new age author of Shamanism: A Beginner’s Guide,
If you ask what shamanism is, the answer you receive will depend upon whom you ask. Although the term comes from a native Siberian people’s language, anthropologists have adopted it to describe a range of spiritual beliefs and practices which are many thousands of years old and which are found, in one form or another, among the native peoples on every continent.20
David Abram, an eco-phenomenologist magician who lived with shamans in Southeast Asia, discusses the disconnect between the way that anthropology characterizes shamanism on a surface level and the way that members of the new age community utilize this surface characterization, and how the mainstream community has picked up on it since. Dolfyn’s writing is a text for aspiring shamans, which is predominantly disseminated within the New Age community in the U.S. to use a practical guide. Dolfyn might be what American Indians call a “twinkie”21, or a peddler of shallow and co-opted spirituality lacking in content. He could also be the well-intentioned humanist that Abram refers to, or maybe he’s a little bit of both.
Anthropology’s inability to discern the shaman’s allegiance to nonhuman nature has led to curious circumstance in the ‘developed world’ today, where many persons in search of spiritual understanding are enrolling in workshops concerned with ‘shamanic’ methods of personal discovery and revelation. Psychotherapists and some physicians have begun to specialize in ‘shamanic healing techniques.’ ‘Shamanism’ has thus come to connote an alternative form of therapy; the emphasis, among these new practitioners of popular humanism, is on personal insight and curing. These are noble aims, to be sure, yet they are secondary to, and derivative from, the primary role of the indigenous shaman, a role that cannot be fulfilled without long and sustained exposure to wild nature, it’s patterns and vicissitudes. Mimicking the indigenous shaman’s curative methods without his intimate knowledge of the wider natural community cannot, if I am correct, do anything more than trade certain symptoms for others, or shift the locus of dis-ease from place to place within the human community. For the source of stress lies in the relation between the human community and the natural landscape.22
This passage from early on in Abram’s work The Spell of the Sensuous brings us to one possible conclusion about the incredible possibilities of shamanism when it is practiced by indigenous peoples around the world, and the impossibilities of effective practice by non-indigenous peoples in the Western world.23 The possibilities in the indigenous world have to do with the extent of liminality in its various manifestations and in its importance beyond being able to go into trance and communicate with the spirit realms (of deceased human beings) and traveling between them, it is also about being able to communicate and cooperate with the animate planet (or microcosm) and exist between the animate animal and plant world and the human world effectively, and this is of equal importance. In every sense of the word the shaman is a liaison. From my experiences from forays into the new age world through my parents, and also the world of ethnographic research on indigenous shamans in parts of Mongolia Abram’s assessment would ring true.
Mircea Eliade, a writer of Religion who traveled extensively but also collected accounts of turn-of-the-century explorers and anthropologists, within several different cultural contexts is considered to be one of the headiest academics on the subject of shamanism (despite valuable critiques of his phenomenological approach and his work on shamanism in general.24) He wrote a seminal text that has been used by anthropologists all over the world for decades as a primer on shamanism, and he happens to find the approach, and very definition of shamanism employed by Dolfyn rather problematic. Eliade comments on the mistreatment of the word, as well as possible other uses within different cultural contexts in his classic Shamanism
Since the beginning of the century, ethnologists have fallen into the habit of using the terms “shaman,” “medicine man,” “sorcerer,” and “magician” interchangeably to designate certain individuals possessing magico-religious powers and found in all “primitive” societies. […] For many reasons this confusion can only militate against any understanding of the shamanic phenomenon. […] We consider it advantageous to restrict the use of the words “shaman” and “shamanism,” precisely to avoid misunderstandings and to cast a clearer light on the history of “magic” and “sorcery.” For of course, the shaman is also a magician and medicine man; he is believed to cure, like all doctors, and to perform miracles of the fakir type, like all magicians, whether primitive or modern. But beyond this, he is a psychopomp, and he may also be priest, mystic, and poet. […] Shamanism in the strict sense is pre-eminently a religious phenomenon of Siberia and Central Asia.25
With this revised definition of shamanism (derived from the language of the Evenki people’s language of Tungus, the word saman), we learn that the best way to describe the shaman is broadly, as a caretaker for the needs of her tribe or community. The usage of the now antiquated terms of psychopomp and fakir brought the idea of liminality to the foreground once again, clearly a very important concept to shamanism (that begs that the language of anthropology be de-mystified.) A psychopomp is an ambassador between worlds, a being who has the ability to exist in the liminal space and offer guidance for transcending to the spirit realm and through the pathways of consciousness and unconsciousness. The fakir, on the other hand, is traditionally a Hindu or Muslim ascetic, with a focus on miracle production through spiritual practice (self-deprivation, fasting, and breatharianism are all associated,) specifically aimed towards a physical path of development.26 But in Central Asia, a shaman is also a potential glossolalia27, a seer, a diviner and a storyteller. She might go into a trance induced by psychoactive fungi, namely amanita muscaria harvested from a forest in the mountains, by playing the mouth harp, by playing the drum, by dancing ecstatically, or chanting. The reason why this definition is so broad, is because at its heart, anthropology’s concern is with understanding the internal logics of cultural phenomena rather than devising new classification systems.
Shamanism, prior to the heyday of explorers and anthropologists, was an oral tradition. There are sacred objects, but no sacred texts--only a sacred environment, sacred beings in the form of animals (humans & ancestors included), plants, landmasses, and deities. Shamanism is a reflection of the indigenous and especially, the nomadic existence in its highest form—it is the human attempt at symbiosis.
According to Dolfyn, the North American new age author of Shamanism: A Beginner’s Guide,
If you ask what shamanism is, the answer you receive will depend upon whom you ask. Although the term comes from a native Siberian people’s language, anthropologists have adopted it to describe a range of spiritual beliefs and practices which are many thousands of years old and which are found, in one form or another, among the native peoples on every continent.20
David Abram, an eco-phenomenologist magician who lived with shamans in Southeast Asia, discusses the disconnect between the way that anthropology characterizes shamanism on a surface level and the way that members of the new age community utilize this surface characterization, and how the mainstream community has picked up on it since. Dolfyn’s writing is a text for aspiring shamans, which is predominantly disseminated within the New Age community in the U.S. to use a practical guide. Dolfyn might be what American Indians call a “twinkie”21, or a peddler of shallow and co-opted spirituality lacking in content. He could also be the well-intentioned humanist that Abram refers to, or maybe he’s a little bit of both.
Anthropology’s inability to discern the shaman’s allegiance to nonhuman nature has led to curious circumstance in the ‘developed world’ today, where many persons in search of spiritual understanding are enrolling in workshops concerned with ‘shamanic’ methods of personal discovery and revelation. Psychotherapists and some physicians have begun to specialize in ‘shamanic healing techniques.’ ‘Shamanism’ has thus come to connote an alternative form of therapy; the emphasis, among these new practitioners of popular humanism, is on personal insight and curing. These are noble aims, to be sure, yet they are secondary to, and derivative from, the primary role of the indigenous shaman, a role that cannot be fulfilled without long and sustained exposure to wild nature, it’s patterns and vicissitudes. Mimicking the indigenous shaman’s curative methods without his intimate knowledge of the wider natural community cannot, if I am correct, do anything more than trade certain symptoms for others, or shift the locus of dis-ease from place to place within the human community. For the source of stress lies in the relation between the human community and the natural landscape.22
This passage from early on in Abram’s work The Spell of the Sensuous brings us to one possible conclusion about the incredible possibilities of shamanism when it is practiced by indigenous peoples around the world, and the impossibilities of effective practice by non-indigenous peoples in the Western world.23 The possibilities in the indigenous world have to do with the extent of liminality in its various manifestations and in its importance beyond being able to go into trance and communicate with the spirit realms (of deceased human beings) and traveling between them, it is also about being able to communicate and cooperate with the animate planet (or microcosm) and exist between the animate animal and plant world and the human world effectively, and this is of equal importance. In every sense of the word the shaman is a liaison. From my experiences from forays into the new age world through my parents, and also the world of ethnographic research on indigenous shamans in parts of Mongolia Abram’s assessment would ring true.
Mircea Eliade, a writer of Religion who traveled extensively but also collected accounts of turn-of-the-century explorers and anthropologists, within several different cultural contexts is considered to be one of the headiest academics on the subject of shamanism (despite valuable critiques of his phenomenological approach and his work on shamanism in general.24) He wrote a seminal text that has been used by anthropologists all over the world for decades as a primer on shamanism, and he happens to find the approach, and very definition of shamanism employed by Dolfyn rather problematic. Eliade comments on the mistreatment of the word, as well as possible other uses within different cultural contexts in his classic Shamanism
Since the beginning of the century, ethnologists have fallen into the habit of using the terms “shaman,” “medicine man,” “sorcerer,” and “magician” interchangeably to designate certain individuals possessing magico-religious powers and found in all “primitive” societies. […] For many reasons this confusion can only militate against any understanding of the shamanic phenomenon. […] We consider it advantageous to restrict the use of the words “shaman” and “shamanism,” precisely to avoid misunderstandings and to cast a clearer light on the history of “magic” and “sorcery.” For of course, the shaman is also a magician and medicine man; he is believed to cure, like all doctors, and to perform miracles of the fakir type, like all magicians, whether primitive or modern. But beyond this, he is a psychopomp, and he may also be priest, mystic, and poet. […] Shamanism in the strict sense is pre-eminently a religious phenomenon of Siberia and Central Asia.25
With this revised definition of shamanism (derived from the language of the Evenki people’s language of Tungus, the word saman), we learn that the best way to describe the shaman is broadly, as a caretaker for the needs of her tribe or community. The usage of the now antiquated terms of psychopomp and fakir brought the idea of liminality to the foreground once again, clearly a very important concept to shamanism (that begs that the language of anthropology be de-mystified.) A psychopomp is an ambassador between worlds, a being who has the ability to exist in the liminal space and offer guidance for transcending to the spirit realm and through the pathways of consciousness and unconsciousness. The fakir, on the other hand, is traditionally a Hindu or Muslim ascetic, with a focus on miracle production through spiritual practice (self-deprivation, fasting, and breatharianism are all associated,) specifically aimed towards a physical path of development.26 But in Central Asia, a shaman is also a potential glossolalia27, a seer, a diviner and a storyteller. She might go into a trance induced by psychoactive fungi, namely amanita muscaria harvested from a forest in the mountains, by playing the mouth harp, by playing the drum, by dancing ecstatically, or chanting. The reason why this definition is so broad, is because at its heart, anthropology’s concern is with understanding the internal logics of cultural phenomena rather than devising new classification systems.
Shamanism, prior to the heyday of explorers and anthropologists, was an oral tradition. There are sacred objects, but no sacred texts--only a sacred environment, sacred beings in the form of animals (humans & ancestors included), plants, landmasses, and deities. Shamanism is a reflection of the indigenous and especially, the nomadic existence in its highest form—it is the human attempt at symbiosis.
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