| Description |
The Traditional Coaxing ritual expresses the peculiar relationship between a man and animal. The ritual comes under the domain of “social practices, rituals and festive events” and in cases where there is participation in the ritual by a singer and musician, or by a few musicians, it might also come under the domain of “performing art”.
While elsewhere spring is a pleasant season for peasants, it isn’t convenient for Mongolian herdsmen. The mother animals give birth to their young in a harsh and dusty spring, so there is a big risk of losing a mother or a baby animal.
Mongols have a variety of rituals relating to husbandry in traditional Mongolian society. One of them is a chanting ritual for a new-born baby animal and its mother. To chant is to stimulate, through the use of special words and melody, the adopting of a baby animal to a mother. There are different gestures, melodies and chanting techniques for the five types of livestock in Mongolia. Coaxing (khuuslukh) a camel is a ritual for a mother who rejects her baby; or for adopting an orphan baby to another female who has lost her baby, because only a suckling mother will have milk in harsh spring time. For the nomadic Mongols the camel milk has been not only the source of food and drinks in the severe Gobi Desert conditions, but also the basic means of preventing illness or for healing diseases. Therefore, the coaxing rituals originated from the everyday occurrence of the herdsmen and became one of the important elements of Mongolian folk knowledge and ritual. The performance of the ritual continues for a few hours at early morning or at twilight and requires a high skill of handling camels and a singing talent or skill for playing on a musical instrument such as the horse head fiddle or flute. Most herdswomen engage in techniques and methods of coaxing, but these techniques and methods aren’t enough sometimes, for performing the ritual successfully. If there isn’t a singer or musician in the family, the owner of the camels will invite a coaxer or a few masters in coaxing and players of a musical instrument, from another place. In this case, the coaxing ritual will compose of a small performance by several actors: a singer along with a horse head fiddle, flute or mouth-orlgan players.
A mother is tied close to the calf, nearby to a yurt. A singer will begin gently their monotone song ""khuus"", ""khuus"" with a horse head fiddle or without any musical instrument. A mother will bite, savage or spit and show her ignorance to a calf at the beginning of the ritual. The coaxer can change their melody, depending on the mother’s behavioural reaction. Most musicians will perform the ritual traditional Mongolian -sad stories about camels- songs such as “Unchin tsagaan botgo”, “Goviin undur” etc. The musician performs his play with different sounds of walking, running and bellowing of a camel and absorbs words into poems, songs and epochs. When a mother camel is being coaxed into accepting a rejected or an orphan calf, it is said to break into tears at the gentle sound of ""khuus"" and the enchanting melody of the horse head fiddle sung and played by someone skilled in the art of casting spells on animals.
In some cases, to perform the ritual more effectively herdsmen use additional techniques such as skinning a dead calf and covering the orphan camel calf with the hide, tying a mother together with a baby quite a far distance from the ger camp for the whole night, or soaking the calf in salt, saltpetre or in the mother’s milk. Also it was common to place the ankle bone of a wild sheep (there is a myth that wild ewes never reject their babies) around the neck of a mother or a calf. But nowadays it is very hard to find these anklebones, as wild sheep are enlisted to the endangered-species list. There is also an exotic remedy in the coaxing ritual where the mother is led to a ger at twilight and shown the fire inside. (A camel can’t enter a ger, because of its size.)
All participants in the ritual wear good clothes, remain attentive and focused, using their own psychic vision and imagination in the coaxing process, because the participants express their gratitude to gods of the camels, mountains and waters within the ritual. After finishing the ritual a coaxer or small group of masters will be honoured guests of the family. A person, who had performed coaxing rituals prosperously, will be invited again and again by the families in need of the ritual. When, where, how many times they have been invited - is the main criteria for evaluating the talent of a cultural bearer of this ritual. The evaluation is a prerequisite to their popularity in a society.
The coaxing ritual has been transmitted from generations to generations and been enriched by the exchange of camel herding knowledge between the herders of Umnugovi, Bayankhongor, Dundgovi provinces, which are the main territories of Mongolia’s Bactrian camel population.
“We should not forget this ritual while we are herding camels, because in both the animal and the human - it transcends genre to become a deeply affecting allegory about the importance of patience and acceptance in so many relationships” that is the conception of elders, the cultural bearers’ communities and camel herders.
The knowledge and skills relating to the ritual’s transmission occurs from parents and elders to youth, in home tutoring: Elders with long experience of herding, herdswomen with singing talent and the talented musicians, who can influence the camel’s behaviour, are the main actors of the coaxing ritual. The ritual acts as a symbolic medium for creating and maintaining the social ties of individual nomadic families and dependencies to the community, because it is one part of the traditional intangible cultural heritage of the relationship between man and livestock. |
| Social and cultural significance |
The Traditional Coaxing ritual expresses the peculiar relationship between a man and animal.
While elsewhere spring is a pleasant season for peasants, it isn’t convenient for Mongolian herdsmen. The mother animals give birth to their young in a harsh and dusty spring, so there is a big risk of losing a mother or a baby animal.
Mongols have a variety of rituals relating to husbandry in traditional Mongolian society. One of them is a chanting ritual for a new-born baby animal and its mother. To chant is to stimulate, through the use of special words and melody, the adopting of a baby animal to a mother. There are different gestures, melodies and chanting techniques for the five types of livestock in Mongolia. Coaxing (khuuslukh) a camel is a ritual for a mother who rejects her baby; or for adopting an orphan baby to another female who has lost her baby, because only a suckling mother will have milk in harsh spring time. For the nomadic Mongols the camel milk has been not only the source of food and drinks in the severe Gobi Desert conditions, but also the basic means of preventing illness or for healing diseases. Therefore, the coaxing rituals originated from the everyday occurrence of the herdsmen and became one of the important elements of Mongolian folk knowledge and ritual.
“We should not forget this ritual while we are herding camels, because in both the animal and the human - it transcends genre to become a deeply affecting allegory about the importance of patience and acceptance in so many relationships” that is the conception of elders, the cultural bearers’ communities and camel herders. |
| Transmission method |
The coaxing ritual has been transmitted from generations to generations and been enriched by the exchange of camel herding knowledge between the herders of Umnugovi, Bayankhongor, Dundgovi provinces, which are the main territories of Mongolia’s Bactrian camel population.
“We should not forget this ritual while we are herding camels, because in both the animal and the human - it transcends genre to become a deeply affecting allegory about the importance of patience and acceptance in so many relationships” that is the conception of elders, the cultural bearers’ communities and camel herders.
The knowledge and skills relating to the ritual’s transmission occurs from parents and elders to youth, in home tutoring: Elders with long experience of herding, herdswomen with singing talent and the talented musicians, who can influence the camel’s behaviour, are the main actors of the coaxing ritual.
The changes in the social and cultural environment have negative impact on the existence of the coaxing ritual.
There are several economic, social, cultural impacts, which have influence on the disappearance of the ritual.
• Due to the penetration of new techniques and technologies into husbandry, the living standard of herdsmen is increasing. Infrastructure development in the Gobi area has contributed to the increase in the numbers of cars, motorcycles and trucks in herdsmen’ households. Most households have both a car and a motorcycle, or at least a motorcycle or a truck, therefore today camels are rarely used as a means for transportation or porting goods. Herdsmen now herd livestock by motorcycle. Therefore, young herdsmen have stopped using traditional sound signals such as huj, huug, duur duur, toor toor to pasture, graze and drive the camels while using motorcycles for herding. Instead of traditional tones that calm camels, there is the car’s horn. Furthermore, herders are losing the traditional understanding relationship they had with camels and the behaviour and the appearance of the non-tamed camels is changing. Untamed camels are aggressive and sometimes show fear of people.
• Development of the mining sector in Umnugovi aimag results in the migration of labour from rural areas attracting herdsmen away from husbandry; there can be a growing inequality in the wealth of the local residents as some of them enjoy the higher wages of the mining industry. This can also lead to social tensions.
• The performance of the coaxing ritual happens not often, because Bactrian camels give birth usually to just one calf in March or in April, after a gestation period of 13 to 14 months. Also, the rejection of a calf by its mother happens rarely.
• Herdsmen’s children from between the ages of 6 to 18 years live in the soum or aimag centres in order to study at school, including during March – the time of the birth and calf-raising process. This overlapping of children’s study time at schools and the birth of new-born calves is suppressing the possibility for children to participate in the coaxing ritual: for them to learn how to coax, or how to play the horse head fiddle or flute. The students have the possibility to live with their family for the three months of summer, instead of helping their parents looking after animals in winter or in the harsh spring. Most herdsmen’s children who have studied for many years in urban centres don’t want to return to their parent’s home. They know well the difficulties of herding pastoral livestock, which is hugely dependent on the severe continental climate.
• There is a big demographic problem in the Gobi area, because of the decreasing number of young herders from year to year, and especially the decreasing number of young herdswomen. There is a new tradition between Mongolian families, to pay more attention to daughters than boys. A daughter will be sent to the city to study and they have more possibilities to live in big cities, therefore most girls don’t return to the countryside. Some young herdsmen are faced with the problem of finding wives who have the skill of herding the camels. For example, there were 488 herdsmen’ households in Mandal-Ovoo soum, Umnugovi aimag in 2003. The number of households had decreased 37.5 percent from 488 to 305 in 2013.
• There has been big domestic migration from the Gobi area to urban centres during the last 24 years. One of the biggest reasons for herders to migrate was the loss of their livestock in winter blizzards and the lack of summer rain in the country from 1995 to 2005. Also during the transition period from a socialist planned economy to a market economy in the 1990s, thousands of herders migrated to urban areas looking for a new life.
On the other hand, the ritual is self-contained, except over mentioned impacts. The coaxing ritual remains as one ancient technique of herding camels, because there are no analogous techniques for saving a new-born calf and mother’s milk during the harsh spring of Mongolia. But some forms of the ritual, for instance coaxing by flute or by vargan are almost forgotten. A bearer Khuukhenduu resident of Khankhongor soum, used a vargan in 1996, for the last time. We have information that flute was used by bearers for coaxing ritual in Noyon and Sevree soums of Umnugovi aimags in the 1950s. We heard by word of mouth legend that Western Mongols had used tsoor (a national instrument) for the coaxing ritual. Nowadays Mongolian folk are losing their traditional roots formed by pastoral husbandry, these remain more and more as theatrical art rather than life practice.
Furthermore, the number of traditional music instruments in herdsmen’s families and the number of cultural bearers are decreasing, except in relation to the horse head fiddle. However there are modern horse head fiddles with nylon strings, instead of the traditional ones made with horse hair, on which it is custom to play folk melodies. Cultural bearers, musicians Tuvden, Batjargal, and Surmaakhorol, prefer the traditional horse head fiddle when they play outside of a ger, as the sounds of the music will be more melodiousness accompanying a wind. Therefore, besides of the preservation the ritual, there is a need also for the rehabilitation of the making of traditional horse head fiddles.
The coaxing ritual has been transmitted from generations to generations in most cases via home tutoring. Just few bearers have studied in colleges or at art schools. Culture bearers have transmitted the ritual in that way and also they have some practitioners. All residents of the Umnogovi, Dundgovi and the south part of Bayankhongor aimags constitute people committed to preserving and promoting the tradition of the coaxing ritual. |
| Community |
There are several individuals primarily concerned with ""khuus"" the coaxing songs for camels
1. Biziyagiin KHUUKHENDUU is 74 years, Dalanzadgad soum, Umnugovi province
2. Lkhagvaagiin MUNKHBAYAR is horse head fiddle musician. Dalanzadgad soum, Umnugovi province
3. Sambuugiin SUMAAJAV is a musician, recitation and traditional ode singer, Bayanlig soum, Bayankhongor province
4. Sh.TSEVEEN is a coaxer, Bayanlig soum, Bayankhongor province
5. G.DAANZAN is a coaxer, Bayanlig soum, Bayankhongor province
6. TS.DAGDULAM is a coaxer, Bayanlig soum, Bayankhongor province
7. Boriin BAYASGALAN is a coaxer, Jinst soum, Bayankhongor aimag
8. Ulziit BATJARGAL is a musician, recitation and traditional ode singer, Dalanzadgad soum, Umnugovi aimag
9. DAANYAM's family, herdsmen, Mandal-Ovoo soum, Umnigovi province
10. Batsaikhangiin TUVDEN, herdersman and horse-head fiddle player. Delgerkhangai soum, Dundgovi province
11. S.Tsenddoo's grandchildren six herders' family: Bor, Khayankhyarvaa, Masshbat, Ganbaatar, Itgelmaa, Togtokhsuren and Buyan-Ulzii.
12. Garamiin Dadisuren was born in Deren sоum, Dundgovi aimag in 1942. |
| Type of UNESCO List |
List of Intangible Cultural Heritage in Need of Urgent Safeguarding |
| Incribed year in UNESCO List |
2015 |
