Mongols losing nomadic identity

Press, 25 May 1985, Page 22

Mongols losing nomadic identity

Genghis — first-born of Yesukai the Valiant, Khan of the Yakka or Great Mongols, Master of 40,000 tents — led the nomadic, pastoral Mongols. During the twelfth and thirteenth centuries they migrated across a vast area of Asia, from the Great Wall of China to the forests of Southern Siberia, from Northern India to Cracow, in Poland, which they destroyed in 1241. On March 24 each year, a trumpeter from Cracow’s fire department sounds a call from the four corners of the city’s cathedral tower to commemorate this destruction. Genghis’s personal name was Temujin, signifying the Finest Steel; the Chinese version is T’ie Mou Jen, which has a totally different meaning: Supreme Earth Man. Today, there are no visible memorials to the memory of Genghis in Inner Mongolia. Around 50,000 Mongols live in Huehot, a drab, dusty city of two million people 3500 ft above sea level on the plain of the Yellow (Hwang Ho) River. The steam train from Peking takes 12 hours to reach the Green City, as the capital of the province is known. The highpoint of any trip to Inner Mongolia is a visit to one of the brigades of herdsmen who occupy the grasslands, a rolling plateau covering two thirds of the region. For nearly 2000 years the Mongols have led a tough, nomadic existence living in yurts (transportable felt tents) and roaming in a constant hunt for water and grass for their vast herds of camels, horses, and sheep. There are few vehicles today in Inner Mongolia and, sadly, even fewer yurts. More than 70 per cent of the herdsmen have been resettled in mud huts. These are built with bricks formed by bonding the local brown soil with grass and the stem of the wild blue iris which blooms in profusion during the hot, dry summer months. In the seven months of winter, the plateau is frequently covered with snow. During China’s Cultural Revolution, ultra-Leftist officials attempted to take away the Mongol’s distinct identity as herdsmen by ordering them to give up raising animals. Their age-old livelihood was seriously disrupted and their attempts to grow grain were largely unsuccessful. Since the fall of the Gang of Four in 1976, this compulsory grain-growing has been abandoned, and Mongolians have been allowed to return to their traditional occupation. Families are now permitted to raise their own animals.

Picture feature by Camera Press.