Shaman's of Mongolia

Sandra Ingerman's Blog
Shaman's of Mongolia
February 22, 2010 by Pat Hartman



In The Nation, Manote Tripathi enthusiastically reviews a Bangkok art gallery exhibit in a piece called “The nomads lose their way.” Link " Art Gallery Exhibit " : http://www.nationmultimedia.com/2010/02/11/lifestyle/lifestyle_30122269.php The works are platinum prints, the making of which is an advanced form of photographic art. The people depicted are Mongolian shamans, and the photographer is anthropologist Hamid Sardar-Afkhami, an American of Iranian ancestry. Traveling by camel, reindeer and horse, Sardar-Afkhami documented the vanishing ways of a vanishing people, the nomadic inhabitants of Outer Mongolia. He learned Mongol and Tibetan, and spent a decade living with the people and observing their customs. Tripathi says:

He set out to record the nomads’ spiritual relationship to their totem animals, focusing on the seasonal rhythms of migration across the steppes, deserts and mountain forests, following shamans, bandits and hunters.

Sardar-Afkhami found that the “nameless mysticism” of the nomads blends seamlessly with some progressive social ideals, but is otherwise hard to pin down. While Buddhism was quashed by the Communists, along with some brands of shamanism, the ancient spiritual values of the nomad culture survived precisely because of that lack of regimentation. But if, among the nomads, there were such a thing as a codified religion, and if it had a priesthood, the individuals he photographed would be those priests.

The anthropologist was most impressed by the still-thriving perception of humankind’s basic unity with nature, especially with animals. He saw hunters capture and train eagles as if they were falcons, then release them back into the wild. He met a man who could call wolves to his door with an ages-old song. Hunters and healers still follow the old ways, and there is a deep bond between humans and their spirit animal or totems. Some of Hamid Sardar-Afkhami’s photos can be seen online at the Galerie Thierry Marlat. Photo's Link: http://galerie-marlat.fr/galerie-hamid-sardar/

Here is an amazing trove of information all gathered in one article, titled “An Overview of the Model of Mongolian Shamanism” – we’re talking about serious scholarship, presented soberly yet attractively. Article Link: http://buryatmongol.org/a-course-in-mongolian-shamanism/an-overview-of-the-model-of-mongolian-shamanism/ The author is Sarangerel Odigan, and the site was designed by Kit Latham. It lists the basic characteristic shamanistic beliefs, beginning with:

Living beings live happy productive lives by promoting balance in the world and observing the customs of respect toward Father Heaven, Mother Earth, and the spirits.

This overview is only a part of a web site called “The Epic of King Gesar.” Link: http://buryatmongol.org/ It’s an outrageously knowledgeable resource, especially when you consider that its topic is the monumental cultural icon in much of Asia, including Tibet. It’s also the world’s longest literary work, approximating 20 million words. Actually, all its parts have never been gathered together in one place. But if they were, it would resemble a novel that would fill up more than a hundred normal-size books.

Sometimes one normal-size book is enough. May we recommend Awakening to the Spirit World? Linl: http://www.amazon.com/Awakening-Spirit-World-Shamanic-Revelation/dp/1591797500?tag=shamanicteach-20 There’s a lot of information about helping spirits, and some of them are animals. Here’s a little sample from Sandra’s book:

The most common types of spirits who work in partnership with the shaman are animals, plants, or spirits who appear as teachers in human form. The ones who appear as animals, or as combinations of animal and human form (therianthropes), are commonly known as ‘power animals.’

And here’s a power animal worth paying attention to. Last year, a movie was released called The Horse Boy. It’s about an autistic child named Rowan, whose mother is a developmental psychologist and whose father happens to be a travel writer. The parents are open-minded and anxious to help their son, so the idea of taking him to Mongolia to consult with holy men strikes them as doable. To enhance and introduce the shamanic therapy, they go part of the way on horseback, because horses are about the only thing Rowan responds to.

A film crew went along and documented a spectacular transformation. While the boy remained autistic, he was freed from the most awkward and debilitating symptoms that had formerly separated him from society. Here’s the fascinating part, as related to us by Lucille Redmond in The Herald:
Horse Power For Active Healing Link: http://www.herald.ie/lifestyle/health-beauty/horse-power-for-active-healing-2063980.html

The Isaacsons now run a children’s horse-therapy centre at their Texas home. Equine Facilitated Learning (EFL) is increasingly popular for children with developmental difficulties. Advocates say the rhythm of riding stimulates parts of the brain that other exercises don’t, and that horses secrete the calming neurohormone oxytocin in their sweat.

The Nomands Lose Their Way
By Manote Tripathi

He set out to record the nomads' spiritual relationship to their totem animals, focusing on the seasonal rhythms of migration across the steppes, deserts and mountain forests, following shamans, bandits and hunters.


The images capture the paradox of the nomads, in whom dignity and strength, cruelty and beauty are juxtaposed.


Sardar-Afkhami says Mongolia is among of the last places in Asia where the ancient spiritual values of early pastoral nomads and hunters have survived, especially the perception of man's essential unity with animals.


"Mongolia is a vast landscape the size of Western Europe, the cradle of Turkic, Mongolian and Tungusic peoples whose diversity of cultural forms and beliefs are vital to our understanding of the past," he says.


He discovered that what was important wasn't the time he spent getting to know his subjects but the time it took for him to actually "exist" in their eyes.


"Like every person, a photographer is a screen, a mirror unto his environment, but a sentient mirror that also reflects inwards," Sardar-Afkhami explains. "The process of creating a photograph � depends in large part on what I do when the mirror starts to reflect inwards."


During his life out in the Mongol outback he was forced to give up his illusions about "freedom". Over time, freedom of speech and religion became insignificant next to the freedom from hunger, drought - and wolves.


"It was at this point I started to exist in the eyes of my companions."


While Soviet and Chinese communism suppressed Buddhism and shamanism, Mongolia's nameless mysticism was tenacious in its powerful mix of superstition and taboo with ideals of solidarity and social progress.


Sardar-Afkhami found nothing written down, only what anthropologists call a "little tradition" - a substratum of heresies, fetishes and rites that lie beneath the "high traditions" of orthodox religions.


"And if this nameless religion were to appoint a high priesthood," he says, "it would be the personalities I photographed."


He found an old man in the Gobi who could make camels cry, and who adopted an orphaned calf by playing his fiddle.


There was a Buryat lama who would call wolves to his doorstep by singing an ancient song.


In the Altai foothills Sardar-Afkhami rode with Kazak shepherds who taught him how to capture golden eagles from the nest and train them to hunt - and then return them to the wild.


"This ecological mysticism linking animal and man became the guiding theme of my art," he says.


Mongolia's hunters and shamans still hunt and heal the ancestral way, through a profound identification with their totems and "spirit animals", which act as escorts between the worlds, lifting the souls of dead warriors to heaven.

Link to the rest of the Article :
http://www.nationmultimedia.com/2010/02/11/lifestyle/lifestyle_30122269.php