Mongolia

by William Jankowiak and John Beierle

Mongolians, Mongols, Menggu (in Chinese), Monggol (in Mongolian); Subgroups: Khalkha, Buriat, Oirats

Mongols, primarily Khalkha Mongols, constitute the majority of the population of Mongolia. A small population of Buriat Mongols and a larger one of Oirat Mongols also live in Mongolia. The Siberian Buriats and the Kalmuk Oirats on the Volga reside in the Russian Federation; the Barga, Khiangan, Juu Ud, Khorchin or Jirem, Chakhar, Shiliingol, Alshaa, Ordos, Tumed, Daurs, and a small community of Buriat Mongols live in the Inner Mongolian Autonomous Region (IMAR), People's Republic of China (PRC); the Oirat (or Deed) Mongols live in Qinghai Province and in the Xinjiang Autonomous Region, PRC.

The range of Mongolian culture extends from northeastern Manchuria (125° E) westward to eastern Xinjiang (80° E). A north-south geographical projection extends in the south from the Ordos Desert, 37° N, northward to Lake Baikal in Siberia at 53° N. Mongols also live in Qinghai Province and along the lower Volga and Don rivers. There is a small remnant Mongolian community in Yunnan Province in the PRC.

Mongolia is, ethnically, relatively homogeneous. The Kazaks, who live in the west, are Mongolia's largest minority group (4 percent), followed by the Russian and Chinese urbanites (2 percent each). There was considerable resentment of Soviet domination of Mongolia. The Soviet Union, however, was also regarded as a useful protector against China, as is its successor, the Russian Federation.

Mongolia, nearly four times the size of California, is wedged between Russia, to its north, and Inner Mongolia to the south. Ecologically, Mongols in Central Asia live in a landlocked, arid region. There is, nevertheless, much topographical diversity. In both Mongolia and the IMAR there are high mountains; rich, wooded areas with rivers, streams, and lakes; and rolling plains of grass (steppes). The Mongolian plateau is the origin of many important Asian rivers. The Yellow River cuts through northwestern Inner Mongolia. The climate is characterized by warm summers and very cold, dry winters. The climate varies by region. At Ulaanbaatar (in Russian, Ulan Bator), capital of Mongolia, the average temperature ranges from 18° C in July to below 0° C in January.

Mongols constitute 91 percent of Mongolia's 2,594,000 total population (2003 estimate.) The population is expanding. Mongolia financially rewards families with six or more children.

The Mongolian language is similar to other Altaic languages (Turkish, Uigur, Kitan, Jurchen, and Manchu). In Mongolia, the largest and most important dialect is Khalkha. In Mongolia Oirat is the only other main dialect. The Oirat or Kalmuck dialect is spoken in northwestern Xinjiang, Qinghai, and the western part of Mongolia. Historically, the Mongols adopted a Uigur or vertical script under the leadership of Chinggis (Genghis) Khan (1206-1227). In 1946, Mongolia formally adopted the Russian Cyrillic alphabet. In Mongolia the official language is Mongolian.

Mongols were an insignificant northern tribe until the early thirteenth century. Under the leadership of Chinggis Khan they were transformed into a large nomadic segmentary state. Khubilai (Kublai) Khan established the Yuan dynasty (1260-1368) and shifted the political center of Mongolian power from Karakorum (near Ulan Bator) to northern China (near Beijing). Mongol power declined after the Mongol dynasty in China was overthrown in 1368.

The Manchus, who conquered China in 1644, divided Mongolian territory into the geographical regions of Outer Mongolia and Inner Mongolia. They also reorganized the Mongols into a banner administration system that bound Mongols to a specific locality, thereby effectively curtailing migration. The collapse of the Manchu (or Qing) dynasty in 1911 resulted in the formation of autonomous regions in Outer Mongolia and among the Bargas. As Russia fell into a civil war, China abolished the newly formed regions, and thereby provoked the formation of the first Mongolian political parties. In February 1921, White Russians entered Outer Mongolia and drove out Chinese forces; in July 1921, the Russian Red Army drove out the Whites and installed a "constitutional monarchy." Mongolia was officially formed in 1924. Khorloogiin Choibalsan and Sukhbaatar (in Russian, Suke Bator) formed and led the early Revolutionary party, and Choibalsan served from 1939 to 1952 as premier. Mongolia and USSR have several long-term economic and "friendship" agreements. In 1987, Mongolia established diplomatic relations with the United States.

The Mongols have always lived in a variety of dwellings: temporary grass shelters, the standard yurt (GER) with a wooden latticework frame covered with felt, a permanent dwelling made from adobe brick, and multistory apartment complexes. Because of the fierce north winds, dwellings face the southeast. By 2000, 57 percent of Mongolia's Mongolian population lives in cities. The largest city in Mongolia is Ulaanbaatar (2004 estimated population of 869,900.) A few other large cities (ca. 2000 population figures) are Erdenet (68,310), Darkhan (65,791), and Choibalsan (41,714).

Mongols continue to hunt a variety of animals: wild antelope, rabbits, pheasants, ducks, foxes, wolves, and marmots. In the mountainous areas they formerly hunted bears, deer, sable, and ermine. The Mongols have used irrigation and dry-farm methods for centuries. Mongolian peasants grow barley, wheat, oats, corn, buckwheat, millet, potatoes, sugar beets, garlic, cabbage, onions, carrots, sorghum, and fruit trees (especially apples), and raise pigs and sheep. Among herders a typical diet consists primarily of millet, milk tea, dairy products, mutton, KUMISS (fermented mare's milk) and liquor (KHAR ARKHI). Of the total land area in Mongolia, about 65 percent is used for pasturage and fodder. In Mongolia, most wheat is grown on state farms and fodder on collectives. With only 15 percent of its labor force employed in industry, Mongolia relies on imports from the former Soviet Union for most of its industrial goods.

The Mongols no longer concentrate on raising horses, cattle, camels, sheep, and goats. Instead there is a preference for sheep, which have the highest market value.

Historically, Mongolian artisans were honored and respected. They worked in gold, silver, iron, wood, leather, and textiles. Recently the applied arts have increased in importance because of export demands and tourist preference.

Historically, Mongols supplemented their economy by trade and raiding. They never developed a merchant class. On a regular basis the Mongols traded animals, fur, and hides for grain, tea, silk, cloth, and manufactured items with Chinese and Russian trading companies. The Mongols also traded with each other during the NAADAM, which continues to function in the IMAR as a trade-marriage-entertainment fair. Most trade in Mongolia is with the former USSR and Eastern Europe.

The gender division of labor is complementary. Among herders, women and children milk, churn butter, cook, sew, and perform child-care duties, whereas the men tend the cattle, horses, and camels, collect hay, and hunt wild game and occasionally wolves. Both sexes tend and shear sheep. In agricultural settings, men construct dwellings and plant, irrigate, weed, and harvest the crops, whereas women cook, clean, sew, perform child care, and assist with the planting and harvesting. In urban settings both men and women work for a wage. Women are responsible for most of the household chores and childcare duties.

In Mongolia, collectivization, after failing in the 1920s, was reintroduced in the late 1950s and has remained the predominant mode of production. In China, collectivization was first introduced in the late 1950s. In the early 1980s it was rejected in favor of the responsibility system, which extended to both farmer and herder long-term contracts to use the land.

The kinship system (i.e., relations governed by rules of marriage, filiation, and descent) was strongly patrilineal in the past, but its larger units, the clans and lineages, lost many of their functions to the Manchu administrative institutions. Among herders the AIL, a group of households consisting of kin and nonkin that migrated together, formed a discrete social unit. The functions of the AIL included mutual help in times of trouble, common kinship rituals (weddings, hair-cutting rites, funerals, etc.), and economic exchange (payment of marriage expenses). Within urban settings, situational use of kinship ties is preferred over other corporate forms of kinship.

Within the domestic cycle, there is more importance placed on marriage than on birth or death. Mongols typically married young: for girls it was at age 13 or 14, for boys a few years later. In the late-twentieth century, Mongolian peasants marry in their early twenties and immediately start a family. Urban Mongols, especially the college-educated, delay marriage until their late twenties and, sometimes, early thirties. Except for urbanites, there is no dating tradition and marriages continue to be arranged. Post-marital residence is almost exclusively patrilocal. Birth control is discouraged. Among peasants and herders, divorce is rare.

Historically, the main kinship groups are the nuclear and extended family and the patronymic group (a group of agnatically related men with their wives and children). Within Mongolia collective farm the household remains the basic domestic unit.

Until the seventh century and the establishment of Buddhist estates, "property" was defined only as movable property. Wives in Mongolian society had rights to inherit property. Under Communism that right continues to be guaranteed by law. The eldest son inherited part of the family wealth at the time of his marriage, and the youngest son inherited the remaining family property after both parents had died.

Historically, cultural transmission occurred informally between parent and child. The common means of discipline are verbal reprimand and corporal punishment. In Mongolia, primary education after the age of eight is free and compulsory. Ten years of schooling are required. Ninety percent of the Mongols in Mongolia are literate. In urban areas, most attend middle school. Very few Mongols attend college.

Traditionally, Mongolian society was organized around lay and ecclesiastical social classes. Social worth in Mongolia and the IMAR is determined by occupation in the state-controlled command economy. The introduction of market incentives in the IMAR countryside reduced the influence of minor officials but did not undermine the power of the high-ranking officials.

Mongols, throughout Central Asia, lived under governments that promoted a Marxist-Leninist political philosophy with a single, dominant political party. Mongolia, the PRC, and the former USSR had a politburo, the chief policy-making body that follows the directives of the Central Committee. In March 1990 the Mongolian People's Republic (MPR) politburo proposed to give up its monopoly on power in favor of a more democratic constitution. In 1990, the Communist Party relinquished control over the government, paving the way for a new constitution. In the 1992 parliament abolished the People's Republic and created a hybrid parliamentary/presidential state.

There were six leagues under the Manchu dynasty, which the MPR reorganized into eighteen provinces (AIMAGS) and thirteen municipalities. In the MPR (now Mongolia), a new administrative unit, the SUMUN, became the county administrative unit. The banner (KHOSHUUN) level, between the province and SUMUN, was abolished.

Mongols did not develop a codified legal system until the thirteenth century. The Mongol legal code included categories ranging from religious to criminal law. These codes lasted until the Communist party came to power. The legal codes developed in the MPR stress collective over individual rights. Everyday affairs are regulated primarily by social censure.

Historically, at the heart of the Mongolian-Chinese conflict there has been the question of land use. Throughout much of the early twentieth century, the migration of Chinese peasants pushed the herders into inferior pastureland. This led to periodic conflict. Ethnic conflict is, more or less, a moot issue in the MPR.

Historically, the primary religions of the Mongols were shamanism and animism. Mongols believed that the shaman had the capability of "soul travel" and could cure the sick. In the sixteenth century Tibetan Buddhism incorporated into its cosmology many shamanistic symbols and rites. Under the Manchus, Tibetan Buddhism flourished. Monastic centers were developed. The 1921 Revolution in Outer Mongolia brought an attack on Buddhism as a superstition. In the MPR the state has restricted the performance of festivals associated with shamanism and Tibetan Buddhism.

Mongolian culture is noted for its epic poetry and music. Modern Russian folk songs and dances, performed in Mongolian, are popular.

Disease and sickness were regarded as the result of evil influences and wrongdoing. The most common diseases were smallpox, typhoid fever, bubonic plague, and syphilis. The Russian and Chinese doctors cured syphilis and reduced the occurrence of the other diseases. Modernization has meant increased access to Western medical facilities. Longevity has increased in both rural and urban areas, primarily due to hygienic and medical development.

Mongolians regard death as a process, not an extinction. Mongols employed a variety of burial practices that ranged from earthen burial to "sky burial" or open-air sacrificial burial to embalmment and to cremation. In the case of sky burial, herders left the body on the steppes to be eaten by wild animals. Since the 1960's, "sky burial" is no longer practiced. Embalming was the preferred funerary mode for high ranking Church officials, who were known as the "reincarnations of Buddha." These officials were embalmed and then buried in a sitting position as if in prayer. Sometimes a lama was cremated to allow their soul to go immediately to heaven. Nobles were buried in coffins with weapons, horses, food, and anything else deemed important for life in the next world. The location of their tomb was a secret. When people died from infectious diseases, they were cremated to reduce the possibility that the infection would spread. Mongols borrowed from Russian and Chinese culture the use of coffins and items thought to be useful to the individual in the next world (e.g., salt, tea, paper money, knife, cooking pot, and so forth.)

Documents referred to in this section are included in the eHRAF Collection of Ethnography and are referenced by author, date of publication, and eHRAF document number.

There are 21 documents in the Mongolia collection. Documents cover Mongolia proper (the present country of Mongolia) and historical Mongolia which includes Imperial Mongolia and tribes living in Russia and China. The major works include a handbook on twentieth-century Mongolia (Far Eastern and Russian Institute 1956, no. 13), two books on kinship system and structure (Krader n.d., no. 10; Vreeland 1973, no. 16), tribal organization (Lattimore 1933, no. 4), and Mongolian law (Riasanovsky 1937, no. 5); Bulag writes about contemporary Mongolian identity and politics (Bulag 1998, no. 18), and Bold (2001, no. 22) argues for a unique Mongolian political economy before and during the Imperial period. Period snapshots include the work of Montell (1937, no. 11) on the Torgut Mongols in 1920s and 30s, and a report from a 1910s Russian expedition (Maiskii 1921, no. 14.) Friters (1949, no. 12) writes about the early twentieth-century independence movement. Three chapters from the book "Mongolia in Transition" cover the post-Soviet era: Bruun writes about post-Soviet era social changes (Bruun 19986, no. 19) and the transition to a market economy (Bruun 1996, no. 20), and Odgaard (1996, no. 21) writes about poverty. Also from this era is a study of the decollectivization of a herding cooperative (Goldstein 1994, no. 17.) Articles from the book "Modern Mongolia" include an overview of Mongolia culture and history with photos (Altangerel 2001, no. 24), a recap of twentieth-century history (Bumaa 2001, no. 25), a look at twentieth-century material culture and fashion (Bikales 2001, no. 26), and a discussion of the democratic roots of Mongolian culture and society (Sabloff 2001, no. 27.) The collection is rounded out with articles on music (Emsheimer 1953, no. 2), milk-wine cultivation (Montell 1937, no. 11), and personhood and personal property (Humphrey 2002, no. 23.) For more detailed information on the content of the individual works in the collection, see the abstracts in the citations preceding each document.

The culture summary was written by William Jankowiak in May, 2005. We thank Paula Sabloff for recommending references to use in the collection. Ian Skoggard wrote the Synopsis and with John Beierle, the indexing notes in May, 2005.

• AIL-group of labor-sharing households-use ANNUAL CYCLE (221), HOUSEHOLD (592) and COMMUNITY STRUCTURE (621)

• AIMAK-sub-tribal division-use TRIBE AND NATION (619)

• ALBA-tithe-use TAXATION AND PUBLIC INCOME (651) and CONGREGATIONS (794)

• administrator-use DISTRICTS (634)

• DEL (DEEL)-traditional costume-use NORMAL GARB (291)

• ERLIIZ-person of mixed Chinese-Mongol parentage-use ETHNIC STRATIFICATION (563)

• GUSAIKAA-banner chief-use DISTRICTS (634)

• HALA-surname group-use SIBS (614)

• HOSHUN-banner-use DISTRICTS (634)

• IDESH-exchanges among kin and households-use GIFT GIVING (431)

• JALAN-regiment-use MILITARY ORGANIZATION (701)

• JASAK-banner chief-use DISTRICTS (634)

• LAMA-priest, monk-use PROPHETS AND ASCETICS (792) and PRIESTHOOD (793)

• MOKAN-patrilineage-use LINEAGES (613)

• NADAAN-national holiday-use REST DAYS AND HOLIDAYS (527)

• NEGDEL-rural herding collective-use ANNUAL CYCLE (221), PASTORAL ACTIVITIES (233), COOPERATIVE ORGANIZATION (474), and TOWNS (632)

• NUBILGAAN-temple head-use PROPHETS AND ASCETICS (792)

• OBAG-league, administrative unit-use DISTRICTS (634) and PROVINCES (635)

• SUM-district administrative unit-use DISTRICTS (634)

• TÖREL-patrilineal descent group-use SIBS (613)

• TAIJI-noble, prince, chief-use STATUS, ROLE, AND PRESTIGE (554), CLASSES (565), and PROVINCES (635)

• YAAMAN-district administrator-use DISTRICTS (634)

• YADAGAN-shaman-use SHAMANS AND PSYCHOTHERAPISTS (756)

Humphrey, C. Pastoral Nomadism in Mongolia: The Role of Herdsmen's Cooperatives in the National Economy. In Development and Change, 133-160. London: Sage. 1978.

Jacchid, S. and P. Hyer. Mongolia's Culture and Society. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press. 1979.

Rupen, R. How Mongolia Is Really Ruled. Stanford, Calif.: Hoover Institution Press. 1979.

Vainshtein, S. Nomads of South Siberia. Edited with an introduction by Caroline Humphrey. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1979.