{"id":1813,"date":"2018-04-27T07:24:49","date_gmt":"2018-04-27T04:24:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ak-sai.com\/?page_id=1813"},"modified":"2019-02-05T16:12:44","modified_gmt":"2019-02-05T10:12:44","slug":"culture","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/ak-sai.com\/en\/destinations\/mongolia\/culture\/","title":{"rendered":"Culture"},"content":{"rendered":"

Culture of Mongolia<\/strong><\/p>\n

Culture of Mongolia has been heavily influenced by the Mongol nomadic way of life. Other important influences are from Tibet and Tibetan Buddhism, and from China. Since 20th century, Russian and European cultures have had a strong effect on Mongolia.<\/p>\n

Among the topics that are mentioned from the oldest works of Mongolian literature to modern soft pop songs are love for parents and homesickness, a longing for the place where one grew up.<\/p>\n

Horses have always played an important role in daily life as well as in the arts. Mongols have a lot of epic heroes from the ancient time. Hospitality is so important in the steppes that it is traditionally taken for granted. The Mongolian word for hero, baatar, appears frequently in personal names, and even in the name of Mongolia\u2019s capital, Ulaanbaatar. The word was introduced in the Middle Ages to many non-Mongolic languages by conquering Mongol-speaking nomads, and now exists in different forms such as the Bulgarian language, Russian, Polish, Hungarian, Persian, North Indian and Georgian. Traditional words such as temul signified a way to describe creativity and passion; \u201ctemul\u201d was used in several Mongol words and had the meaning to: \u201crush headlong, to be inspired or to have a sense of creative thought, and even to take a flight of fancy. It can be seen from Mongolian perspective as \u201cthe look in the eye of a horse that is racing where it wants to go, no matter what the rider wants.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yurts (ger)<\/strong><\/p>\n

The ger (yurt) is part of the Mongolian national identity. The Secret History of the Mongols mentions Genghis Khan as the leader of all people who live in a felt tents, called \u201cGer\u201d, and even today a large share of Mongolia\u2019s population lives in ger, even in Ulaanbaatar. \u201cGer\u201d also means home, and other words are derived from its word stem. For example, gerlekh means to marry.<\/p>\n

Religion<\/strong><\/p>\n

Since ancient times, Tengrism was the dominant belief system of the Mongols and still retains significant importance in their mythology. During the era of the Great Khans, Mongolia practiced freedom of worship and is still a defining element of the Mongol character. In the 17th century, Tibetan Buddhism became the dominant religion in Mongolia. Traditional Shamanism was, except in some remote regions, suppressed and marginalized. On the other hand, a number of shamanic practices, like \u201covoo\u201d worshiping, were incorporated into Buddhist liturgy.<\/p>\n

Customs and superstitions<\/strong><\/p>\n

Mongolians traditionally were afraid of misfortunes and believe in good and bad omens. Misfortune might be attracted by talking about negative things or by persons that are often talked about. They might also be sent by some malicious shaman enraged by breaking some taboo, like stepping on a yurt\u2019s threshold, desecrating waters or mountains, etc.<\/p>\n

The most endangered family members were children. They are sometimes given non-names like Nergui (Mongolian: without name) or Enebish (Mongolian: not this one), or boys would be dressed up as girls. \u201cSince people of the steppe received only one name in life, its selection carried much symbolism, often on several levels; the name imparted to the child its character, fate and destiny.\u201d Before going out at night, young children\u2019s foreheads are sometimes painted with charcoal or soot to deceive evil spirits that this is not a child but a rabbit with black hair on the forehead.<\/p>\n

For a child, the first big celebration is the first haircut, usually at an age between three and five. Birthdays were not celebrated in the past, but today, birthday parties are popular. Wedding ceremonies traditionally include the hand-over of a new yurt (ger) to the marrying couple. Deceased relatives were usually put to rest in the open, where the bodies were eaten by animals and birds. Nowadays, bodies are usually buried<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Culture of Mongolia Culture of Mongolia has been heavily influenced by the Mongol nomadic way of life. Other important influences are from Tibet and Tibetan Buddhism, and from China. Since 20th century, Russian and European cultures have had a strong effect on Mongolia. Among the topics that are mentioned from the oldest works of Mongolian […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1084,"parent":1794,"menu_order":4,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"page_object.php","meta":{"footnotes":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ak-sai.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1813"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ak-sai.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ak-sai.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ak-sai.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ak-sai.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1813"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/ak-sai.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1813\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11396,"href":"https:\/\/ak-sai.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1813\/revisions\/11396"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ak-sai.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1794"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ak-sai.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1084"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ak-sai.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1813"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}