a long tradition
Thursday, April 16th, 2009sorry this is incomplete – with the strains of “if it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing properly” ringing in my ears, I publish this unproper piece! We’ll get back to it some not-so-busy-catch-up-y day.
Orkhon, Mongolia
Modern day Mongolians, even urban dwellers still seem to have a strong tie to their horseriding nomadic roots. The first family we stayed with regaled us with all sorts of stories and traditions passed down from generation to generation, many very horsie.
Apparently every Mongolian household has a silver bowl.
silver bowl, licking, carry in coat, sterilise water, detect poison, grinding down over the years etc
With the bowl, come food traditions. Every meal is started with a bowl of tea to aid digestion. Fruit is only eaten one hour before a meal, never with a meal. Meat is winter food; in summer just milk and yoghurt with bread suffice.
There are also hygiene traditions. I’m not sure now much they are a “national” trait as opposed to a particular family’s preference – certainly our second family did not appear to follow the same rituals. In mild spring time (when more bacteria are in the air than during the freeze of winter or the heat of summer) you should wash your hands three times upon coming inside.
Any time, if you cut hair or nails, the cuttings should be put in the waste water and not thrown into the rubbish – something to do with birds taking the hair and they might build a nest near your home and this brings bad luck.
Speaking of hair, there’s the Three Golden Hairs Story, as retold by ???????
whoever I can get to write it out
And because our young blondie has a thumb-sucking-at-bedtime-addiction, we were also offered a sucking thumb solution. Tie a string to the guilty thumb and attach it to one of the roof supports in the ger so she cannot get it to her mouth! As host family’s same-age daughter was sucking her thumb too, we did not put this to the test. It would have been better than the Lao rub-chicken-intestines-on-it solution or the stand-her-out-in-the-cold-until-she-stops suggestion.
Another tradition passed down now through three generations is bow making. In Mongolia there remain only two traditional bow-makers, and it just so happened that one of them lived just across the hill from the ranch. So we went to visit the real premises of www.hornbow.mn (link currently unavailable – maybe coz he’s sitting outside enjoying the sun on his front step!)
BOW MAKING EXPEDITION – description, kids’ enthusiam matched only by the grandpa’s, a bit about the process rarara
Reminds me of the Chingghis Khan “proverb” we were told.
There were five brothers. Fighting brothers. Their wise father took a single arrow and told them to break it. Easy. He then handed them five arrows together and repeated the instruction. Of course, this time it was impossible to break them. The moral: family must be together to be strong.
When we came out of the bow maker’s workshop, who should we see, but a proud traditionally-attired couple. Having had stones thrown at him for taking photos in these parts, Rob was hesitant to flash the camera around, but this costume was too good to not photograph, and so we tentatively asked for permission to capture this walking-along-the-street-in-daily-life-but-looking-like-a-museum-piece-couple. They were happy to oblige – on one condition. The regal man tucked his hand into his magnificent patterned coat and pulled out a tiny bright blue metallic digital camera; he wanted a photo of us too! Who would complain at that? And you should have seen his eyes bulge as the rest of the children came tripping out of the workshop – he’d have been satisfied with the two who were standing with us! From his boots to his hat, this man was completely Mongolian, a walking treasure of tradition.
rayres