Elements
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EE00001283
"Yohor" Buryat's singing round dance
Yohor, singing round dance of the Buryat ethnic group in Mongolia, the Buryat Republic of the Russian Federation and the People’s Republic of China, is a complex phenomenon of poetry, melody, and movement. Eldest woman starts the Yohor dance. Yohor consists of three parts, in the first part, people start appealing other people to do Yohor. They say words “Yohoroo khatariya! khatarysh”. It means let’s do the Yohor dance. These signal words remind to people it’s time to dance Yohor. In the second part, people stand in circle formation holding hands and singing in a low pitch, start moving foot steps forward; or sideward steps; or backward jumps in circle path with arms gestures as moves up, down and sideward. In combination with changes of melody rhythm, the dance movements are changed into stamping, hopping, leaping, and steps are replaced by jumps. In the end of the dance, people say the word “hatariya hatarysh”.
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Archery
Archery is one of the Three Manly Sports and it has its ancient roots. The distance of the contemporary sport of archery is 45 feet or 75-80 meters. The shooting targets made by weaving leather strips into a tub-shape. There are two forms of shooting targets. One is a walled target, another is an individual target. The wall target is the arrangement of targets in a stack. The individual target is the arrangement of targets in row. The archers can use only blunted arrows. Then two shooting teams alternately shoot and test their skills. During the archery, archers say ‘Khurai, khurai, khurai’, the encouragement of archers to shoot. The winners are awarded with title of Mergen or ‘good marksman’ and an epithet.
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Aytiz
Aytiz is one unique form of oral expressions of Kazakh people to sing in pairs. According to its contents, aytiz is classified into basic aytiz, jar jar aytiz, aytiz of animals and humans, aytiz for this life and the life after death, riddle aytiz and aytiz for rituals and practices. Among these forms, the aytiz for rituals and practices is well developed and widely spread. Dombor (Kazakh traditional stringed instrument) players with good voices compete with each other in poetic manners. When pairs are singing Aytiz, they reflect good and bad personality of each other, and compliments the good things and criticize the failures in their community (bagh, soum, city and country) in a way of debating to compromise the opposite person.
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Belt
The belt represents one's social status and wealth. There are a variety of belts found in Mongolia, including belts that are knitted and others that are made from cloth, leather, hide, and even silver and gold. Aristocrats of the nomadic pastoral peoples of the past would use belts made of various precious metals, on which delicate ornaments would be engraved and gemstones inlayed. This kind of belt was called an agsargan bits. It also had metal decorations from which the wearer would hang their sword, knife, and bow case. There was an ancient tradition that Mongolian men, when they established a friendship with another, would exchange their belts as a wish for continuous peace and unity with one another. It is said that aristocrats of the past would also engrave three, five, seven, or nine dragons on their gold or silver belts as a sign of reverence to this mythic beast.
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Benediction
Benediction is a powerful expression of the miraculous capacity of words. It is one of the genres of Mongolian oral poetry that uses melodies. Benedictions propitiate people’s future happiness and well-being through skillfully composed and recited poems. It is unique in a way that minstrels sing the benediction completely from memory, and also by adding their own versions of words or improvising totally new verses to fit particular situations or events. By the invitation of people, a person who knows the order of feast and ceremonies well and mastered in the benediction and its melody says the benediction with use of the holly silk scarf, milk in the silver bowl, and Airag in bowl. The benediction is oral poetry which contains a beginning, main part and ending part.
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Bone crafts
It is a very old tradition to use the bones of domesticated and wild animals is directly correlated to the cultural and ethical practices of the nomadic Mongolians. Bone crafts have been practiced since the time that the nomads used various parts of their animals, such as ribs, shins, radiuses, pelvises, kneecaps, ankles, nails, teeth, spines, skulls, and chins, as tools. Later, they started using tusks, canines, and horns, particularly those of strong animals, which had symbolic as well as decorative meaning. With the development of bone crafts, various types of bone games have appeared. Ankle bones, for example, are used for a variety of traditional games and toys.
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Boodog
Boodog is a delicacy in Mongolia. We treat our guests with it. In order to make boodog, a goat is choked without cutting the pit of stomach of goat. All the bones and entrails of the dead goat are removed through the neck skin. Then seasoned meat is stuffed through the neck into the boneless skin. In such manner, the hot roundish stones and seasoned meat are stuffed alternatively. The seasoned meat consists of onion, allium mongolicum and pepper. Then a bit of water is added into the boneless skin. Then we tie the neck of the boneless skin with rope of horse's hair up tightly and place the boneless skin on hot cow dung, turning it in various directions. Those hot roundish stones roast the meat and its skin. We place it on the hot embers and wash it with water. During these periods we take vapours from the neck of the boneless skin. The taste of this meat is delicious; its stock is good for those suffering from mental fatigue. It is good for health if you roll the warm stone on your fingers balls.
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EE00001132
Buryat bow and arrow and its archery
The bow and arrow are the weapons that used from the ancient time to the present. It has been developed within these centuries, and every ethnic group made its own specific bow and arrow and used that for hundreds of years. Same with this, Buryat-Mongols have made their own bow and arrow and used it to the naadam besides with the hunting. Same with other Mongol ethnics, the body of the Buryat bow and arrow is made from birch, and upper and bottom part of bow body or curved ends are made from horn, and the string is made from sinew. As mentioned in the report, it mostly made from the horn of a cow, but later it made from the horn of ibex, deer, and moose. The hide from the cow head was used in the making of glue, besides these glues were made from the fish and hoof of the cow.
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Camel race
Except using camels for riding and pulling carts, Mongols have a tradition to race them. The camel race is organized during the feast that celebrated when the number of camels increased to thousands or celebrating the products from the camel and during other celebrations. The camel breeders mostly race gelding and yearling camels. The yearling camel’s race within around eight kilometres and the gelding-camels around ten kilometres. In recent years Gobi aimags, the main land of camel flocks, have revived the ancient traditional game with camels as camel (buluu) polo. This is an indigenous cultural phenomenon which considered as a contribution to the development of tourist attraction during winter times.
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Casting silver bowls
As widely used and greatly respected by the Mongols, cast silver bowls are the most popular items that clearly demonstrate the true skills of Mongol artisans. Each style or make has specific features of craftsmanship by its region. Most popular ones are the Borjigin, Dariganga, Noyon-Sevrei and Batnorov which also variably differ by their design, carvings, ornaments, input and mould.
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Catching of anklenbones
Depending upon the quantity of anklebones, the number of players can be established. The players place a rug or quilted felt rug and scatter ankle bones over the rug and sit round the rug. The senior or honorary person starts playing. The players' play ankle bones alternate according to clockwise. There is a piece of mail imitating the armour of ancient warriors. This piece is called the "arrow" or piece of mail. The player tosses up the piece of mail toward the air. Before the fall of piece of mail, the player collects anklebones as much as possible and clenches them in the palm and receives the tossed piece of mail at its palm without letting the piece of mail fall on the ground. Each player passes its turn to the next player if touches other scattered ankle bones, ex-cept of its clenched ankle bones, anklebones slip out of the player's hand or the player does not receive the tossed piece of mail on its palm
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Ceremony of consecrating animals
Mongols love their animals and look after them as because the animals are the main source of their life. Mongols have a custom and tradition to make animals sacred and entrust the stars, fire, Buddha and stone cairns to protect them, as because the animals are the main source of life. The animal consecration is a one form of a practice of worshipping by offering their loved animals to the gods, deities and nymphs of mountains and waters. For instance, a white or brown horse is offered for the sky, red goat for the Damjindorlig deity, and a blackish colored animal for the Gombo deity. The blessed animals are forbidden to be ridden, beaten, cursed, stabbed, or sold.
Mongolia