To get to the ceremony, we drove through the outskirts of Ulaanbaatar, past some coal towns right outside, and then into a little valley with a few tourist camps. While we were driving in an even littler valley between two steep hills, Prof. C slowed down and started looking through the windows. I figured he was trying to find the ceremony, but I wasn’t sure what exactly he was looking for. I sat, perfectly content to watch a few horses grazing, and a car painstakingly making its way down the slope. After a few moments of driving very slowly, Prof. C pointed out the window and said, “Look at that.” I wasn’t entirely sure what I was quite looking at—the horses weren’t noteworthy, so maybe it was the rock formations? There were a few white cars parked at the top of the hill, right beneath the ridge. Could that be the ceremony? Do shamans drive cars? I wondered.
Apparently they do, because Prof. C found a spot to drive off the road and proceeded up the hill. I thought, at one point, “It’s a good thing we’re in an SUV, because I don’t think a normal car could make this,” but then the car I’d seen driving down the slope earlier passed us, and it was a pretty ordinary sedan. Well, I guess if you’re in a sedan and you need to drive up a hill in Mongolia, you do it.
So we drove up —bumpity, bumpity— and parked next to the other cars. The views were beautiful. We walked up the remainder of the slope, and any ideas I’d had about hiking for miles up mountains in the Mongolian wilderness were quickly dispelled as I arrived breathless at the top. There were a few people gathered around the shaman, who was sitting on the ground and lamenting (this is not the technical term, but it’s the only one I can think of for the high-pitched half-singing, half-chanting). The top of his face was covered by the blue fringe on his shaman mask, and there were a couple people attending to him wearing bright dark blue with orange sashes. (Their outfits were cool, but I think my favorite was the ten-year-old boy in a Hello Kitty robe.) The people there generally ignored us, and so I just stood and watched and tried to look respectful. A baby started crying, and the other people said something to his mother, who took her away to quiet her down. Prof. C walked down the ridge for a minute and talked to someone on his cell phone, while I continued to observe and tried to absorb everything into my memory as best as I could. After a few minutes, Prof. C returned, pointed over the valley, and said, “This is the wrong ceremony—we’re on that mountain.”
After, all, who hasn’t gone to the wrong mountain for his shaman ceremony? So we loaded back into the car and drove down the hill to find the right Sun worshippers. The moral of this story: What did we do before cell phones?
We drove for a few more minutes, around a mountain and then up a ridge to where there were a lot of cars gathered, and Prof. C found the people he knew. The ceremony was very interesting… There were a few shamans, about 10-15 in full garb, and a few “helpers” in the blue-and-orange, whom Prof. C said were also training to be shamans; one young girl was also a psychology student at the NUM. We spoke to a friend of Prof. C’s, who runs a shaman center, and he pointed out which shamans belonged to which tribes. Apparently there were shamans from all different tribes across Mongolia for this event; the best I could figure was that these shamans all live in Ulaanbaatar, but their ties are to regional tribes.
The shaman outfits were incredible—they had lots of colored cloth snakes sewn all over their clothes, plus the hats and masks. (Check out my first post for a more detailed picture of a shaman.) There were differences between the shamans of the different tribes, but I couldn’t quite figure them out. Tons of people (70-100?) were sitting and standing in a large sort-of circle, and many sat next to little tables covered in cookies and tiny pots of milk/yogurt/airag. A few of these tables also had shamans who were dealing with people individually, while in the center maybe 15-25 people and a few shamans sat around a fire for the main, official part of the ceremony.
Around the fire, people were singing a song; they had their hands held out, palms up, in front of them, and they were swaying a bit. A few people who were not by the fire, but instead were sitting by their tables and maybe talking to friends or doing their own thing, also held out their hands and swayed and sang. I asked Prof. C what they were singing, and he said they were giving thanks for their lives, and worshipping the sky gods, and asking them to help them with their troubles. Note: Shamanism is also called Tengriism, after the word for “sky,” because a lot of it revolves around worshipping the sky spirits. Later on, everyone around the fire sang a new song, and began to bow down repeatedly in the direction of the fire, (including one toddler in front of her mother, who did not look particularly happy about it.) Prof. C said that they were worshipping the fire, because fire is very important in their lives, too. When the ceremonies had concluded, a woman started a song, and most people joined in, at least for a bit; this was a song to the “Mother Land,” as Prof. C explained. Looking around at the views of their Motherland, I could certainly see where they were coming from.
people. At one point, some milk was thrown on us, and although I figured this was a common occurrence, the Mongolian woman we were talking to seemed peeved about it. There was even a little boy who was trying his hand at it, with a carton of milk and his own little spoon.
I got to meet a few shamans, including one who blessed me. I handed her a 10,000 MNT note, and I had to be careful to make sure it was faceup, with the picture of Genghis Khan looking at her. (The shaman’s helper next to me corrected me, for which I was thankful.) I knelt down in front of her, and she sniffed at both my ears (or maybe it was both sides of my neck?), said something to me in Mongolian, and then beat at my back with a… a… a thing. I’ll learn the real name for it eventually, but it was like a heavy piece of cloth that with ropes attached, and they may have been cloth snakes. Prof. C explained that the process beat the bad spirits out of the person, so that there should be no evil left in him/her. (Hear that? No more evil for me!)
When I inquired further about this woman and the people who came to her to be blessed, Prof. C said that sometimes people come to the shamans when they are having trouble, in order to ask for help with a specific problem in their lives. Maybe someone is sick, or there is a family issue, and the shaman will bless them and possibly give them advice.
Which brings me to my next meditation… In this ceremony, people sang praise for their lives and the things in their lives, they sought divine support, and they asked holy people for help with their problems. Of course, these are all aspects of Church services and pretty much most religious services/practices/prayers: Praise and requests, etc. So what is it about life that makes people need to praise a higher power for it? What is it about our problems that make us seek holy support? Why, across a million societies and in a million different ways, do we look to the heavens instead of to the world around us? Also, why is it that people continue to ask their God(s) for help when historically, He does not always oblige? And for people who don’t believe in a higher power (or for people who do, I guess): Whom do you thank when life is just too gorgeous to be believed? And to whom do you “pray” when it is just too awful?
So, lastly: Regardless of what you believe, next time life is wonderful, maybe try also thanking the people who are making it wonderful. And next time there is something awful happening, maybe think about what you can do, concretely, to make it better, or if not better, at least a little easier. Even so, the best answer might be the same as it has been for billions of people over thousands of years: Pray.
SOOO jealous!!
ReplyDelete