The Mongolian Nomadic Life and Ecological Balance
By Delger
People living outside the Chinese Great Wall, why is choosing the nomadic life from the prehistoric time? While, people living inside the Great Wall, why is choosing the agricultural life? I think there are three main reasons:
1. Scientists have found that the mountains located from west to east in North China, the Mount Yanshan, on which Great Wall were built, are regarded as the natural watershed of annual rainfall of 400ml. Therefore, the outside area of the Great Wall is fit to herding and the inside area is fit to farming. Naturally, two sides of the people had chosen different kinds of life, herding and farming.
2. The outside area of the Great Wall only has the surface soil of 33.3cm in general. If it were cultivated and farmed, it would be turned into desert in several years because of the dry climate and soil erosion. Our ancestors had practiced and somehow understood the reason and choose the mode of production--herding.
3. It is not enough to choose the mode of production—herding only. But they have to do nomadic life, moving one place to another, in order to ensure the ecological balance forever.
So how the nomadic life is effectively guaranteeing the ecological balance? To answer this question, we have to see what are nomadic life and its producing processes. There are really many scientific ideas in it. But I only able to talking about the functions of ecological balance in Mongolian nomadic life here, for I am being a Mongolian, son of a traditional herdsman, knowing the own culture better, comparatively.
I. The time divisions of the year in the Mongolian nomadic life: the climate of the Mongolian plateau belongs to the temperate zone climate, so there are very clear four seasons in a year. According to these four seasons, Mongolians divide the pastures into four seasonal parts or places, such as Haburji-a (the spring herding place, from February to April or May), Jusalang (the summer herding place, from May to July or August), Namurji-a (the autumn herding place, from August to December or November) and Ebulji-e (the winter herding place, from November to January or February).
II. The moving regularity and the reasons: In nomadic life, the herdsmen move from the Spring Herding Place to the Summer Herding Place, then from the Summer Herding Place to the Autumn Herding Place, then from the Autumn Herding Place to the Winter Herding Place, and then from the Winter Herding Place to the Spring Herding Place again with their families and animals…. This is the moving or circulating regularity of the nomadic life. So why the herdsmen not settle down at one place but moving frequently or four times in a year? They don’t like to settle down a certain place happily and but they like to moving constantly, carrying with their whole family and livestock all around the year? The answer is no. It is decided by their fresh grass need for the livestock raising and to take good care of their pasture. If they were settled down and feed the animals just in one place all round the year, there would be happen a terrible thing: at first, the animals eat up the whole pasture and no more grass left there. Secondly, in order to exist, the animals eat up the grass roots. It means there is no rebirthing opportunity for grass, that is, there is no grass seedling and young plant, no blossom and bear seeds, so that end up the reproduction of the grass or the pasture. Thirdly, animals have to eat the leaves and branches of the trees, sometimes even their barks. And then whole of the pasture and natural plants have been destroyed, and the rivers or streams and lakes dried up and rainfalls very easily washing away the poor soil and became sandy place or desert, soon. Our ancestors understood the very simple and the very great theory from their long run of the history of struggle for the existence. To solve the problem, they have to moving from one place to another. Therefore they divided the pasture into four seasonal parts for to keep the ecological balance forever. The circulating principle of the pasture is: when they are feeding the animals in the Spring Herding Place, the grass of the Summer Herding Place are seedling and growing well. When they finished the spring pasture, they move to the Summer Herding Place and there they found fresh grass for the animals, while the grass of the Spring Herding Place recovered. When they finished the summer pasture, they move to the Autumn Herding Place and there they found ripped grass for the livestock, while the grass of the Summer Herding Place recovered. When they finished the autumn pasture, they move to the Winter Herding Place and there they found natural hay for the animals and so on and on…
This kind of circulating regularity formed the possibility for remaining of the nature as its original shape forever.
III. The good traditions and ideologies of the people and laws or rules about the nature: from the prehistoric time, there are very good ideas or thoughts and customs (both religious and traditional) and laws or rules about protecting the environment among the Mongols. In ancient Mongolian ideology of the nature, the heaven is the father and the earth is the mother. And people should be respect to the father heaven and the mother earth. So there had formed the good traditions for protecting the natural ecological balance such as The Heaven and the Earth Worship or Sacrifice, the Mountain Sacrifice, the Oboo Sacrifice, the Tree Sacrifice etc. …Both in religious ceremonies and daily life. Just take the tree worship for example: the Mother-tree-worship, the Sorceress-tree-worship, the Heavenly-tree-worship, the Shaman-tree-worship, the Ancestor-tree-worship, the Oboo-tree-worship, the Shangsi-tree-worship①; There are many kinds of Darhalahu customs and rules for preserving the certain mountains and certain animals from the ancient time. In the third century BC, the Hun Mongolians give a big sacrifice to the Odhan Tngri Mount, which now located in the border of Mongolia, in autumn and summer; There has a clear record about which Mongolians offering sacrifice to the Burhan Haldon from Chinggis Khan’s time in historical documents. When Chinggis khan as a child, once he was pursued by Mergid Tribe, he hid into the Burhan Haldon Mount and successfully escaped from their capture and said: “The mount Burhan saved my life that as poor as a louse and my body which as little as a kidney safely, protected us from the dangerous enemy kindly, we would sacrifice you as a backer for we orphans and widows every morning, saying these words he put the belt as a beads on his neck, held the hat in his hand, put the other hand on the chest, toward the sun and the mount, he kneed down on his feet nine times and saluted and offered some sacrifice.” ②; And Mongols always give a warning to their generations: couldn't dig a hole or wipe the ground no any need or reason. If it were done, there would be a bad luck. These ideas helped them and made their great respect and love for the motherland and protected their environment from sabotage, generation to generation.
IV. The necessities in traditional Mongolian daily life which never harmful to the nature: the means of housing, the Mongol Ger (tent) only has wooden framework and woolen shelters. It means we don’t need to dig up fine earth from the ground and to burn bricks and tiles; the means of the fuel, the Argal (dried animal dung) is a very clean fuel used in Mongolian daily life. It means we don’t need to cut down the trees or grass or open a coalmine; the traditional means of communication, the horse, cattle, camel and wooden cart are main communicational tools of Mongolian nomadic life. It means we don’t need to establish so many dirty factories and to make kinds of dirty motor vehicles and dirty oil fields and gas stations. (Of course, here, I am not meant to say the means of modern communication is bad. We need to find something very clean to the environment such as ideas of clean communication of nomadic life. We need more power and more speed, but no more dirty and noise.)
May everyone know that the nomadic life moves from one place to another. But few people understand its circulating regularity and reasons that were just talked and analyzed in the foregoing parts. Therefore, most people regarded it as a backward and simple and even barbarian life mistakenly, even today. In fact, the nomadic life is the practices and experiences of the living and production of the thousands and thousands of years. It has its certain circulating regularity and scientific theories, and proved the truth not by a short and a simple experiment, but by several thousand million years of living and practices of the mode of production of the nomadic life. So that nomadic life, only nomadic life has retained the nature as its original look, and efficiently keep the ecological balance forever. These are the very reason that why there still find to see primitive grassland and forests in Mongolian plateau even today, thanks to the nomadic life.
*Note:
“Dialogue among Civilizations: Interaction between Nomadic and Other Culture of Central Asia”, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, 2003.5
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