Inner Mongolia

By William Jankowiak, Ian Skoggard, and John Beierle

Mongolians, Mongols, Menggu (in Chinese), Monggol (in Mongolian).

Barga, Khiangan, Juu Ud, Khorchin or Jirem, Chakhar, Shiliingol, Alshaa, Ordos, Tumed, Daurs, Buriat.

Mongols in Inner Mongolian Autonomous Region (IMAR), China make numerous group distinctions. There are the Barga, Khiangan, Juu Ud, Khorchin or Jirem, Chakhar, Shiliingol, Alshaa, Ordos, Tumed, Daurs, and a small community of Buriat Mongols. The range of Inner Mongolian culture extends from northeastern Manchuria (125° E) westward to Ala Shan league (MENG) in western Inner Mongolia (80° E). A north-south geographical projection extends in the south from the Ordos Desert, 37° N, northward to Shilingo league.

There is much topographical diversity. There are high mountains; rich, wooded areas with rivers, streams, and lakes; and rolling plains of grass (steppes). The Inner Mongolian plateau is the second largest plateau in China with an attitude over 1,000m. 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. In general, the climate of Inner Mongolia is continental, with long winters and sharp temperature changes in spring and fall. For example, In Alxa (Alshaa) county in southwestern the temperatures can range from 37.7° C for July to below 0° C for January. Desertification is a major environmental problem in Inner Mongolia.

Mongols constitute 11.2 percent (2,681,000 Mongols) of the IMAR's 23,790,000 total population (ca 2002). Between 1960 and 1990 the average annual rate of growth was 2.6 percent, while rural areas is was only 1.3 percent, and urban areas 4.2 percent (Neupert 1999:421). Between 1912 and 1990 the Han population of Inner Mongolia increased from 1.2 to 17.3 million. Today there are over 20 million Han Chinese in IMAR (Neupert 1999:425). In 1985, the state restricted Mongolian families to two children, or (in the case of farmers) three if the first two children are girls. The major nationalities are Han 79 percent, Mongol 17 percent, Manchu 2 percent, Hui (Chinese Muslims) 0.9 percent, and Daur 0.3 percent. In the IMAR the three largest cities are Baotou (1,146,500), Huhhot (817,500), and Chifeng (479,300).

The Mongolian language is similar to other Altaic languages (Turkish, Uyghur, Kitan, Jurchen, and Manchu). In the IMAR, dialects are divided by region: in the center there is the Chahar-Shiliingol dialect, which is closely related to standard Khalkha; in the northeast Barga and Buriat are spoken; in the southeast the major dialect is Khorchin; in the northwest it is Alxa; and in the southwest it is the Ordos dialect. With the exception of the Daurs, who speak a separate language in northeastern Inner Mongolia, the dialects are more or less mutually intelligible. Historically, the Mongols adopted a Uyghur or vertical script under the leadership of Chinggis (Genghis) Khan (1206-1227). The Uyghur script remains the official script in the IMAR. The official language is Mandarin and Mongolian and can be found on all government publications and on all public signs and state administrative office buildings. The predominance of Chinese is the main problem for the functional use of Mongolian. Around 33 percent of the Mongolian population does not use Mongolian as their primary language (Humphrey and Sneath 1999:23). In the cities the percentage is much higher.

Mongols were an insignificant northern tribe until the early thirteenth century when 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 present-day Ulaanbaatar) to northern China (near present-day 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. In the 1930s the Japanese formed a new government (Meng-Jiang) in central Inner Mongolia, headed by the Mongolian prince Demchigdonggrub (Dewang). The Japanese army withdrawal in 1945 enabled Soviet-Mongolian military units to enter Inner Mongolia and Manchuria. It was not until after the Soviets had rejected political unification that the majority of Inner Mongolian leaders agreed to back the Chinese Communist party.

The socialist transformation of Inner Mongolian society resulted in favoring agriculture over herding. It also produced different interpretations over how best to achieve this goal. One group favored gradually introducing reforms and the other urged rapid change. Rich herders reacted to new socialist policies by killing their herds.

Mongol nationalist movements can be divided into three periods: 1911-1913, 1925-1929, and 1931-1947. The first pan-Mongolian movement, led by nobles, tried to reunite with Outer Mongolia. In 1925, an Inner Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party sought independence for Inner Mongolia under the influence of the Third Communist International. The third autonomous movement was led by Prince Demcgugdibgrob (De Wang), who in 1931 organized a provincial government in the Shing Gol region (Bulag 2004). That movement which also received support from the Japanese, who had occupied Manchuria and eastern Inner Mongolia, ended with Japan's defeat in 1947. During the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) China's doubts about the loyalty of Inner Mongolians resulted in Inner Mongols being accused (falsely) of trying to revive the separatist Inner Mongolian Revolutionary Party (NEI REN DANG). This accusation resulted in the government establishing an internal organization charged with the tasks of identifying, arresting, imprisoning alleged members of the subversive movement. In the end, between 10,000 to 100,000 Mongols were killed (the estimates vary according to the source), with hundreds of thousands of Mongols arrested. An unintended outcome of the Cultural Revolution was to heighten ethnic antagonism that continues to this day.

Inner Mongolia is an ethnically diverse region. Besides Mongols, there are Daur, Hui, Ewenki, Oroqun, Koreans, Tibetians and Tu ethnic groups. Feelings between Mongols and Han Chinese continue to swing between mild antagonism to overt hostility. Most Mongols regard themselves as loyal citizens of China.

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, GER dwellings face the southeast. Space within the GER is conceptually divided along two principles: status and public versus domestic. High-status people and things are placed in the northernmost part of the GER. The more junior an object or person is, the further south (i.e., towards the door) the position. The western side of the GER is associated with public, external, and to some extend male things, while the eastern side is the appropriate place for domestic or inside things (Sneath 2000:218).

The majority of pastoral households in Inner Mongolia have access to a permanent house. Around 70 percent of the territory of Inner Mongolia is still used for pastoralism (Sneath 2000:2). However, the majority of Mongols are farmers. Rural districts in Inner Mongolia can be classified into three types: Pastoral districts, with a significant population of mobile pastoralists (Hulun Buir, northern Shilingol and Alasah, parts of Ih Juu, Bayan Nuur, and Ulaanchab leagues. Next, are the semi-pastoral-semi-sedentary Mongolian populations that practice farming and herding. Finally, there are agricultural districts where most Han Chinese live (Sneath 2000:88).

To meet the growing industrial demands for labor, the state encouraged nationwide rural-to-urban migration. In IMAR, this movement resulted in a population growth in the region's larger cities (2001 population figures): Baotou (1,146,500), Hohhot (817,500), Chifeng (479,300), Wuhai (343,800), and Tongliao (324,300).

In Inner Mongolia, Mongols continue to use irrigation and dry-farm methods. 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, KUMIS (fermented mare's milk) and liquor (KHAR ARKHI).

Pastoralism is a household enterprise: everyone in a household, including adult men, women, children, and elderly engage in some kind of production activity. Large families also have wider social contacts that can and do provide economic support. Access to markets, social and health benefits, water resources, emergency pasture and veterinary services have transformed patterns of mobility and residence. Inner Mongolia herders move less distances and there is less effective management of the common grazing land. The environmental risks remain. There are acute natural hazards such as animals disease, fire, fluctuations in rainfall, and quality of forage impact the herders well being. In the past, this risk was spread across the collective, today each household is responsible for its own survival. Herders, therefore, are more vulnerable to social and biophysical shifts in the environment (Fernandez 2000:4). By the early 1990's the standard of living of the pastoralist had declined. Local herders believe they have been bypassed in Inner Mongolia's development that favors farmers and urbanites over herders. Herders were assessed with new kinds of taxes, experienced less profitable exchanges, and had to deal with an increase in animal thefts that cut into their income. By the late 1990s herding families preferred that their children move to the towns and cities to find better employment opportunities.

The traditional grazing system protected the principle of an open range. Though land was formally under the control of feudal lords, customary law gave common herders unlimited rights to graze their herds wherever they pleased within the boundaries of the banner (Williams 2002:69). Recent research on indigenous forms of land utilization finds that they do not lead to range degradation (ibid: 76). Privatization has transformed pastoral and farming way of life. Pastures are allocated to individual households, which has led to a decreased mobility and an increase in pasture degradation.

The reform government has invested much less in animal husbandry than it has in crop cultivation and forestry (Williams 2002:45). The expansion of peasant farming into the grasslands represents the final phase in the long history of the central government's efforts to sedentarize, control, and monitor the mobile herding populations on its periphery (Williams 2002:9). One consequence of this trend has been an increase in the difference between poor and rich herders with the wealthier one-fifth of rural households now controlling five times the wealth owned by the bottom one-fifth (Williams 2002:138). The reappearance of the patron-client relationship among herders in Inner Mongolia suggests the reappearance of a nascent class structure.

Modernization and globalization have not always been synonymous in China. Mao tried to keep the modernist project separate from the influences of the capitalist world system (Williams 2002:54). In China, Mongols have an economic advantage of inclusion in the expanding Chinese economy and its huge markets for consumer goods (Humphrey and Sneath 1999:58). The integration of Inner Mongolia into the global economy has provided economic incentives for herders to no longer concentrate on raising a variety of animals such as horses, cattle, camels, sheep, and goats. Instead there is a preference for sheep and goats, which have a higher market value. The rapid economic differentiation among herders has meant that some are subject to market vagaries and depend largely on subsistence production; while others herders who live near towns are economically advantaged as numerous traders want to buy raw materials from them (Humphrey and Sneath 1999:4). Still, from the late 1980's till 2005, the prices of animal products have failed to keep up with inflation and the buying power of the average pastoralist has been reduced.

Tourism is another major source of income in IMAR. In 2000 there were over 391,900 tourists who visited the region. Baotou is the region's largest consumer center, followed by Hohhot, and Chifeng.

The region specializes in animal husbandry, product processing, metallurgy, forestry, chemical and building materials, and tanning industries. The region is rich in coal, cement limestone, and siliceous clay. Inner Mongolia has China's largest iron ore mine at Baiyunerbo, which is also the largest rare earth mine in China. The reserves of rare earth minerals in the region account for 90 percent of the nation's total. With an extensive coal deposits, as well as, the iron ore, Inner Mongolia has become an important steel production center. Baotou Iron and Steel Company is one China's major steel producers. The region's reserves of niobium and natural soda also rank it first in the country. The region's textile industry is a major producer of cotton, wool, and cashmere goods.

Mounting demographic pressures have impacted the availability of viable grassland. The vegetative yield of China's grasslands has shrunk by half, while the number of livestock has quadrupled (Williams 2002:29). Since the 1960's, the rate of desert expansion in the Ordos region exceeds the natural rate of expansion over the previous 2,000 years (Williams 2002:27). The process of land degradation has eliminated large tracts of usable pasture and has contributed to uncomfortable spring dust storms.

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. Herding Mongols also traded with each other during the NAADAM, which continues to function as a trade-marriage-entertainment fair. Recently the applied arts have increased in importance because of export demands and tourist preference. By 2000, most trade is with other Chinese provinces, the United States, Japan, and the United Kingdom.

Mongolian patriarchal ideas about gender held that each sex had a discrete and separate identity. 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 the urban settings both men and women work for a wage. Women are responsible for most of the household chores and childcare duties. Mongols place a high value on both male and female children. In urban sector most women work and have considerable influence within the family.

Up to 1940 land tenure was feudal and livestock managed by family groups. The livestock industry was collectivized in the early 50s - families kept their own subsistence stock (about 25% of total livestock units). In the early 1980s, the collective system was rejected in favor of an individual centered responsibility system, which extended to both farmer and herder long-term contracts to use the land. In 2000, livestock and land use polices were under different administrative units.

The historical record shows Mongolian society to have been dominated by hierarchical political structures rather than egalitarian kinship systems. By 1206, Chinggis Khan founded a new polity that merged rival clans into one system, with the Borjigid (Chinggis' kin) clan forming a new aristocracy. In the 16th century, the Manchu introduced their model of clanship to the Mongols as an administrative unit and governing principle (Sneath 2000:203-204).

Prior to socialist reforms, Mongolian kinship was organized around age and generation. By the 1980's, herding family life was characterized by an informality in daily interaction. Kinship is traced bilaterally and networks are usually based on patrilateral, matrilateral, and affinal kin (Sneath 2000:196). Post-marital residence is almost exclusively patrilocal.

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. The Mongol lacked a segmentary lineage structure (Sneath 2000:200). 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). The responsibility system which resulted in the allocation of the pastures to individual families increased the importance of kinship as a principle for the organization of residence, work, and property ownership (Sneath 1999:165). 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. Historically, engagements were made when children were fourteen or fifteen years of age and the divination of a lama was obtained to decide whether an engagement would be successful. This is followed by a feast. When the male turned eighteen or nineteen and the female reached sixteen or seventeen their marriage was consummated. Marriages tended to be clan exogamous, until the 20th century, when prohibitions against marrying within the same clan were relaxed. In the past, Mongols practiced polygyny and monogamy. Unlike the Chinese, secondary wives were considered equal to the first wife (Jagchid and Hyer 1979:83).

Mongolian herders and farmers marry in their late teen and early twenties. In contrast, the urban Mongols, especially the college-educated, delay marriage until their late twenties and, sometimes, early thirties. Although Mongolian poetry, literature and songs reveal a greater degree of romantic love, except for urbanites, there is no dating tradition and marriages continue to be arranged. Premarital sex is common among Mongolian herders and urbanities. By the 1990s most Mongols practiced birth control.

The primary domestic units are the nuclear and stem family. The reform era has not changed the way Mongolian domestic unit is organized, its division of labor, and the symbolic ordering of domestic space. Mongolians continue to pool and share resources. Urban Mongols also live in nuclear and stem families.

Among pastoralists, Mongolian culture inheritance rules followed customary practices. Pastoral Mongols distinguish between personal and private property. When a person is dying, valuable possessions (e.g., rings, watches, necklaces) are removed. The person is asked who should receive them. According to Buddhist beliefs giving up personal valuables is deemed a pious action. Not to do so, would result in the person remaining emotionally attached to this life (Humphrey 2002:67). Newly married couples receive animals from the herds of their families of origin, customarily through pre-inheritance and dowry. In old age a Mongolians passed their property onto their children. Mongolians deemed it improper to make a will. They preferred that their possessions be disposed of after or just before their death. With the exception of meritorious donations made to the monastery, inheritance followed customary proportions given to members of the immediate family, and, especially, to the youngest son who remains in his parents' household (Humphrey 2002:71). Under communism these customs were 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.

In farming villages, inheritance practices follow Han Chinese customs. This means that property is given to surviving sons. Urban Mongols tend to follow the Han Chinese inheritance practices which means property is divided equally among offspring.

Historically, cultural transmission occurred informally between parent and child. Children are taught gender appropriate task and by thirteen years can perform all the required tasks. The common means of discipline are verbal reprimand and corporal punishment. Older adults, if present, direct the work of younger children. Mongolian pastoralist and village children grow up in close association with other adults. They seldom form separate "child-only" spaces. To achieve greater compliance with society standards, the state created an extensive education system of boarding schools for pastoral children. Most Mongols at least attend primary school. Very few pastoral Mongols attend college. In the reform era, herding parents stopped sending their children to elementary schools that used the Mongolian language. Instead they prefer that their children go to schools that offered instruction in Mandarin. Because pastoralists no longer consider herding an economically viable occupation, they prefer their children to seek an alternative livelihood in the towns and cities to accomplish this, they need to speak Mandarin.

In cities there is a greater reluctance to send a child to Mongol-only language school, as learning Mandarin and English is considered more suitable for being accepted into a university. For most Mongolian parents, their dilemma arises from the fact that Mongolian language is a symbol of Mongol identity and cultural independence.

Traditionally, Mongolian society was organized around lay and ecclesiastical social classes. 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. In China, the weakened local government has largely rescinded responsibility for pastoral management to individual households, which makes it difficult to implement coordinated practices (Humphrey 1999:134). In 1990, Shilingo league instituted a formal group called the HOT that was used to allocate grazing land. These changes have made kinship relations more economically vital than they were in the past, when members of the collective (NEGDEL) functioned as wage laborers. Today, pastoral households rely upon developed exchange networks (e.g., friends and kin) to supply goods and services.

There are three types of pastoralists: dependent, self-sufficient, and patron (Sneath 2000:60). The self-sufficient type is the more common, followed by the dependent, and then the patron. In many ways these types are similar to social types present under Manchu rule.

Inner Mongolian Mongols lived under a government that promotes a Marxist-Leninist political philosophy with a single, dominant political party. The politburo, the chief policy-making body, follows the directives of the Central Committee. The political culture in Inner Mongolia has long been intermingled with those of China, it is perhaps not surprising that Mongolian relations of patronage bear some resemblance to those among Chinese officials (Sneath 2000:41).

In 1947, the Communists established the IMAR and continued the Manchu organized banner administrative system. Each banner has its own administrative center, with a population of between 10,000 to 100,000 people. The banner is subdivided into several subdistricts that have several thousand inhabitants (Sneath 2000:137). There are twelve perfecture-level units, including nine prefecture-level cities (e.g., Hohhot, Baotou, Wuhai, Chifeng, Tongliao, Ordos, Hulunbuir, Baynnur, and Ulaan Chab) and three leagues (e.g., Xilin Gol, Alxa, Xing'an). There are 101 County-level divisions and 1431 township-level divisions. Prefecture-level cities also include sizable rural areas.

Mongols codified their legal system in 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 in 1949. The legal codes stressed collective over individual rights. Everyday affairs were regulated primarily by shame and social censure. Besides the legal code, the state relies on a vast network of police surveillance and informants that provide information on anything that may be considered as a threat to the state. Mongolian intellectuals have been arrested over the years for talking about Mongolian rights and ethnic interests. Other Mongolian intellectuals, who hold academic positions in the United States, have also been detained and questioned concerning the tone of their writings as it pertains to ethnic issues in China. People are aware of this unofficial presence and are cautious in how they interact with strangers and what they voice in quasi-public settings.

Throughout much of the early twentieth century, the migration of Chinese peasants pushed the herders onto inferior pastureland. This led to periodic conflict. Today, many Han Chinese believe the state's affirmative-action policy provides Mongols with many benefits. The Mongols argue that the state has not provided enough benefits. Mongols tend to associate within their own community. Han-Mongolian friendships, as opposed to work related relationships, are the exception. Inner Mongolians also identify strongly with the Chinese state. For their part, they consider themselves to be members of an ethnic group as well as being Chinese citizens.

Beside ethnic conflict, other major social divisions are emerging: children without education, wealthy entrepreneurs, the unemployed. Amongst pastoralists, there is a growing differential between wealthy and poor herders. As in the case of Outer Mongolia, most Inner Mongolian herders live at the subsistence level. The emergence of social stratification has resulted in a decline in community solidarity which has also resulted in an increase in crime and violence. The enclosure conflicts are pandemic. There are arguments over fencing practices, theft of fence-wire, furious exchanges whenever animals cross into someone else's land, and outright vandalism (Williams 2002:153-155). These new social divisions are related to restricted opportunities and unfilled aspirations. They have implications for the future integration of Chinese society.

Historically, the primary religions of the Mongols were shamanism and animism. Shamanism included a range of ritual specialists whose discourses and practices varied according to historical, regional, and political contexts. In Mongolia, there are written and oral traditions with the oral being the more predominate. This resulted in shamanistic practice being more performance-centered rather than liturgy-centered (Pegg 2001:120). A shaman, who could be male or female, combined different roles that ranged from doctor, teacher, adviser, administrative person, and entertainer. Mongols were a mixture of shamanism, animism, and Tibetan Buddhism. Mongols believed that important places, especially certain hills, were occupied by powerful spirits and deities. To honor the spirits rock cairns (OBOO) were constructed at locations people considered to have great efficacy. An OBOO cairn is made of earth and stones, with brushwood and flags placed at the top. Around the foot lie stones engraved and painted with Tibetan prayers, coins, bottles, and bones (Sneath 2000:235). The OBOO ritual festivals were held on specific dates following the lunar calendar. They were important community events that involved the participation of men and women, both together and separately. The ritual of OBOO is related to a sacramental tie between people and their land. At the same time, the OBOO games were considered actions that brought about a good future (Humphrey 1996:151). Except among the Daur Mongols who live in northeastern area, the Buddhist cosmology continues to influence people's understanding of the significance of the OBOO festival.

In the sixteenth century Tibetan Buddhism incorporated into its cosmology many shamanistic symbols and rites. Under the Manchus, Tibetan Buddhism flourished and numerous monastic centers were developed. Tibetan Buddhism impacted most of Mongolian culture with its diffusion of numerous Buddhist beliefs (e.g., selfishness, harming other creatures, defying Buddhist teachings damages an individual's own destiny) and practices into the wider culture. A core axiom of Tibetan Buddhism is the idea of reincarnation which regards the physical body as a vessel for the soul. Each death and rebirth impacts an individual's fate. Sin leads to reincarnation in one of the lower levels, as an animal or a starving ghost. This is a moral cosmology linked to social behavior and order.

In the early 1950s there were over 50,000 lamas and 2,000 temples and ecclesiastical organizations in the IMAR. During the Cultural Revolution all but two of them were destroyed. With the exception of Mergen (near Baotou), there are few active Mongolian language Buddhist monasteries in Inner Mongolia (Evans and Humphrey 2003). In the southwestern Ordos region the Chinggis Khan Memorial continues to draw local Mongols and tourists from throughout the IMAR.

Mongolian artisans were honored and respected. They worked in gold, silver, iron, wood, leather, and textiles. They prefer to use lavish ornamentation and motifs with symbolic meanings associated with nature. Festival clothing is bright and colorful. Mongolians adopted many Tibetan Buddhist elements in their fine arts. Unlike Zen-inspired monochromatic painting of Japan and China, Mongolian art is solidly painted and bold in its designs (Jagchid and Hyer 1979:232). The applied arts have increased in importance because of export demands and tourist preference. In 2002, Hohhot hosted "Ulaanbaatar Days: a festival of Mongolian art, music and film." Scheduled during the summer when the city is filled with tourists, the festival helps promote Mongolian culture through its art.

The communist government did not value Mongolian traditional art works. Much of that art was lost with the purging of Buddhism. In old Mongolia, music styles, dance performances, texts, and iconography were used to express ethnic identity (Pegg 2001:8). Given Mongolia's regional diversity, there was variation in songs as well as in instrument style. Herders, like other Central Asian pastorals, played predominately string or wind instruments. Songs are closely linked to old homelands, migrations, nature spirits, or former administrators, such as princes and lamas. Certain types of performance were thought to have control over the weather. Under communism these themes were forbidden (Pegg 2001:15). New songs and poems about nature, the homeland, love of parents, children, the state, and the Party became the preferred themes. In terms of music structure, Mongolian traditional songs fall along a continuum that range from extended long songs that are ornamental and without a regular beat. At the other end are strophic, syllabic, rhythmic short-songs performed without ornamentation (Pegg 2001:43-44).

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 Chinese doctors cured syphilis and reduced the occurrence of the other diseases. Modernization has meant increased access to Western medical facilities. Urban Mongols give birth in hospitals, whereas herders and farmers continue to give birth in their homes. Longevity has increased in both rural and urban areas, primarily due to hygienic and medical development.

However, health risks associated with herding continue. There are risks of chronic cold stress, accidental injury, and death from hypothermia (Williams 2002:156). Farmers living on the Hetao Plain, between the Yellow River and the Insham Mountains, suffer from arsenic-related illness. The region has seen a drop in population as entire villages have been abandoned.

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.)

Because herders believed that in the next world everything is reversed, a male corpse would be placed on the right side, or woman's side, of the yurt, while a female was placed on the left side, or men's side. In addition, Mongols adopted the Chinese custom of numerology whereby certain days (e.g., 7th, 14th, 21st and 49th day) following the funeral are considered more auspicious than others.

Unti lthe 1980's, an open-air, sacrificial burial or "sky burial" was held only in the sparsely populated Ujemchin districts of Shiliingol and among the Oirat (or Deed) Mongols living in the Haixi Prefecture of Qinghai. In other banners and districts, rural Mongols bury the dead in community graveyards. In urban China, Mongols, like everyone else, are cremated.

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 fifteen documents in the Inner Mongolia collection. A general handbook of Inner Mongolia geography, history, and culture was published by the Far Eastern and Russian Institute (1956, no 1.) The earliest works in the collection are by the Catholic priest Father Kler who lived among the Ordos Mongolians in the 1920s and 30s. He wrote articles on hunting practices (Kler 1941, no. 7); sickness, death, and burials (Kler 1936, no. 10) and birth, infancy, and childhood (Kler 1938, no. 6). Chang (1933, no. 14) provides an economic assessment and prognosis of Mongolia in the 1930s. Owen Lattimore (1934, no. 12) wrote a political ecology of the region, prior to the Japanese occupation in 1932. Two translated Japanese studies examine health and living conditions (Hikage 1938, no. 3), and housing, clothing and diet (Izumi 1939, no. 4.) Cammann (1945, no. 11) reports on his 1945 travels in the Ordos and Gobi desserts and Houtai plain. Three works examine the twentieth-century Han colonization of the region (Cressy 1932, no. 8; Lattimore 1932, no. 9; Pasternak and Salaff 1993, no. 18.) Sneath (2000, no 17) examines the history of Chinese government policies imposed on Mongolian pastoral society from the pre-Chinese Revolutionary period up to the post-Mao period. Jankowiak (1993, no 16) writes an engaging urban ethnography of Huhhot and Bulag (2002, no. 17) examines how the contradictions and tensions of vying Chinese and Mongolian nationalisms play out in socialist Inner Mongolia.

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 for the collection. Ian Skoggard wrote the Synopsis, and John Beierle wrote the indexing notes, in May 2005.

• AIL -- household - use HOUSEHOLD (592) and EXTENDED FAMILIES (596)

• banner -- Manchu military and administrative unit - use DISTRICTS (634)

• brigade -- production and administrative unit - use TOWNS (632)

• cadre -- communist party official -- use TEACHERS (875)

• DANWEI -- administrative and production unit -- use STATE ENTERPRISE (475) and TERRITORIAL HIERARCHY (631)

• gentility -- use ETIQUETTE (576)

• GER-- house, yurt -- use DWELLINGS (342)

• Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (GPCR) -- use POLITICAL MOVEMENTS (668)

• GUANXI -- non-kin social relationships based on mutual interest -- use GIFT GIVING (431) and FRIENDSHIPS (572)

• HEQIN -- peace marriage -- use BASIS OF MARRIAGE (581), INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS (648), and PEACEMAKING (728)

• HOTONS (HOT, HOT-AILS) -- group of pastoral households -- use PASTORAL ACTIVITIES (233) and HOUSEHOLDS (592)

• intellectual -- use TEACHERS (875)

• lama -- Tibetan Buddhist priest and monk -- use PROPHETS AND ASCETICS (792) and PRIESTHOOD (793)

• league -- political unit originally based on tribal unit -- use DISTRICTS (634)

• people's commune -- production and administrative unit -- use DISTRICTS (634)

• QINGMING -- spring grave sweeping ceremony -- use MOURNING (765)

• sanga -- Buddhist congregation -- use CONGREGATIONS (794)

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