Pub Date : 2020-11-04DOI: 10.1163/22105018-12340152
B. Norov, Binderiya Batsaikhan, B. Usukhbayar
It was primarily Russian activities in Mongolia between 1860 and 1921, reflecting its geopolitical interests, that introduced European medical practices to the Mongols. Competing alongside other European powers, the Russian Government capitalised on conditions within Mongolia to increase Mongolia’s dependency on Russia. Thus, the Russian government’s motives for medical intervention, like that of other European groups, were mainly political, economic and cultural. In the context of Buddhist dogmatism and the expansive territorial distances between the Mongols (a term this paper uses to encompass all people of Mongol ethnicity in northern and central Asia), the reluctance of Russian doctors to disseminate European medical knowledge prevented its spread into Mongolia. Medical intervention was primarily a method of colonisation justified through healthcare support. Ultimately the familiarisation of European medicine in Mongolia was the first crucial step towards the amalgamation of traditional Mongolian and European medical practices after the Mongolian People’s Revolution.
{"title":"Mongol Familiarisation with European Medical Practices in the Nineteenth–Twentieth Centuries","authors":"B. Norov, Binderiya Batsaikhan, B. Usukhbayar","doi":"10.1163/22105018-12340152","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/22105018-12340152","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000It was primarily Russian activities in Mongolia between 1860 and 1921, reflecting its geopolitical interests, that introduced European medical practices to the Mongols. Competing alongside other European powers, the Russian Government capitalised on conditions within Mongolia to increase Mongolia’s dependency on Russia. Thus, the Russian government’s motives for medical intervention, like that of other European groups, were mainly political, economic and cultural. In the context of Buddhist dogmatism and the expansive territorial distances between the Mongols (a term this paper uses to encompass all people of Mongol ethnicity in northern and central Asia), the reluctance of Russian doctors to disseminate European medical knowledge prevented its spread into Mongolia. Medical intervention was primarily a method of colonisation justified through healthcare support. Ultimately the familiarisation of European medicine in Mongolia was the first crucial step towards the amalgamation of traditional Mongolian and European medical practices after the Mongolian People’s Revolution.","PeriodicalId":43430,"journal":{"name":"Inner Asia","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2020-11-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1163/22105018-12340152","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48954854","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-05-29DOI: 10.1163/22105018-12340147
K. Swancutt
Animal release is often understood as the practice of freeing an animal from human consumption or the burden of labour. Typically associated with various Buddhist or Daoist cosmologies in which liberating an animal is a merit-making act, animal release tends to be conceptualised in altruistic terms. Yet the diverse forms that sacrifice and animal release take across Inner Asia suggest that the focus of analysis sometimes shifts from a concern with freeing animals to protecting the human imperative to live. Introducing new ethnography on the ethical underpinnings of sacrifice among Buryats in northeast Mongolia and the Nuosu of southwest China, I propose that animal release can be an act of restrained violence that evokes the mythopoetic contours of human–animal relations, animal sentience and human self-preservation. Offering case studies on scapegoats, deferred sacrifice, and contingent forms of slaughter, I show how Buryats and Nuosu manage the ethical tensions posed by sacrifice.
{"title":"Animal Release and the Sacrificial Ethos in Inner Asia","authors":"K. Swancutt","doi":"10.1163/22105018-12340147","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/22105018-12340147","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000Animal release is often understood as the practice of freeing an animal from human consumption or the burden of labour. Typically associated with various Buddhist or Daoist cosmologies in which liberating an animal is a merit-making act, animal release tends to be conceptualised in altruistic terms. Yet the diverse forms that sacrifice and animal release take across Inner Asia suggest that the focus of analysis sometimes shifts from a concern with freeing animals to protecting the human imperative to live. Introducing new ethnography on the ethical underpinnings of sacrifice among Buryats in northeast Mongolia and the Nuosu of southwest China, I propose that animal release can be an act of restrained violence that evokes the mythopoetic contours of human–animal relations, animal sentience and human self-preservation. Offering case studies on scapegoats, deferred sacrifice, and contingent forms of slaughter, I show how Buryats and Nuosu manage the ethical tensions posed by sacrifice.","PeriodicalId":43430,"journal":{"name":"Inner Asia","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2020-05-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1163/22105018-12340147","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44341982","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-04-24DOI: 10.1163/22105018-12340132
G. Delaplace, C. Humphrey
There are probably few problems more universal than that of the variability of speeds at which a given distance might be covered; this applies, arguably, not only to humans and earthly non-humans, but really to any material body in any possible universe. Yet, through one of those curious processes of extreme scalar condensation by which matters of ultra-localised concern come to illuminate matters of very general import (a sort of intellectual operation that social anthropologists have tended to make a speciality of), the papers gathered in this special issue all concur to show how this problem poses itself in a unique way for Inner Asian populations.1 Several case studies presented here thus illustrate how strikingly contrasted speeds may be coordinated by a given population within a single system of mobility. Reindeer sledges glide their cargo away through the frozen Siberian tundra, while aircrafts can be seen jolting about up in the air, as they transport a handful of select passengers from one settlement to the other. Horse-relay servicemen wrap up their bellies tightly, so their innards remain in place as they gallop hundreds of miles across the Mongolian steppe and up mountainpasses on a daily basis, while wayfaring camel caravans step measuredly through distant yet well-trodden routes for months on end. There is indeed more than one way in which moving to or through places might be achieved in these areas, and the introduction of motorised land or airborne transport has only added to the possibilities, rarely replacing any pre-existing one. Yet of course, travels are hardly the only occasions for people to be on the move in Inner Asia, where different brands of nomadic pastoralism involving different mobility patterns have been tried out, abandoned or adopted
{"title":"Introduction: Effective Slownesses","authors":"G. Delaplace, C. Humphrey","doi":"10.1163/22105018-12340132","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/22105018-12340132","url":null,"abstract":"There are probably few problems more universal than that of the variability of speeds at which a given distance might be covered; this applies, arguably, not only to humans and earthly non-humans, but really to any material body in any possible universe. Yet, through one of those curious processes of extreme scalar condensation by which matters of ultra-localised concern come to illuminate matters of very general import (a sort of intellectual operation that social anthropologists have tended to make a speciality of), the papers gathered in this special issue all concur to show how this problem poses itself in a unique way for Inner Asian populations.1 Several case studies presented here thus illustrate how strikingly contrasted speeds may be coordinated by a given population within a single system of mobility. Reindeer sledges glide their cargo away through the frozen Siberian tundra, while aircrafts can be seen jolting about up in the air, as they transport a handful of select passengers from one settlement to the other. Horse-relay servicemen wrap up their bellies tightly, so their innards remain in place as they gallop hundreds of miles across the Mongolian steppe and up mountainpasses on a daily basis, while wayfaring camel caravans step measuredly through distant yet well-trodden routes for months on end. There is indeed more than one way in which moving to or through places might be achieved in these areas, and the introduction of motorised land or airborne transport has only added to the possibilities, rarely replacing any pre-existing one. Yet of course, travels are hardly the only occasions for people to be on the move in Inner Asia, where different brands of nomadic pastoralism involving different mobility patterns have been tried out, abandoned or adopted","PeriodicalId":43430,"journal":{"name":"Inner Asia","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2020-04-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1163/22105018-12340132","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44264165","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-04-24DOI: 10.1163/22105018-12340140
Loretta E. Kim
{"title":"Making Borders in Modern East Asia: The Tumen River demarcation, 1881–1919, written by Nianshen Song","authors":"Loretta E. Kim","doi":"10.1163/22105018-12340140","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/22105018-12340140","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":43430,"journal":{"name":"Inner Asia","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2020-04-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1163/22105018-12340140","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43521653","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-04-24DOI: 10.1163/22105018-12340133
C. Humphrey
This paper discusses two non-nomadic modes of transport in 1930s–60s Mongolia: the horse relay system and the goods caravan. It suggests that each of these should be seen as a ‘mobility constellation’ involving entanglements of mobility, narrative and practice, and implying different social relations and experience of the environment. It is argued that the relay system in particular involved abstract distance–speed calculation and that this enabled the conception of extensive cross-border geographies. The paper also explains why herders who took part in (fast) relay and (slow) caravan duties greatly preferred the latter.
{"title":"‘Fast’ and ‘Slow’: Abstract Thinking and ‘Real Experience’ in Two Mongolian Non-Pastoral Modes of Travel","authors":"C. Humphrey","doi":"10.1163/22105018-12340133","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/22105018-12340133","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000This paper discusses two non-nomadic modes of transport in 1930s–60s Mongolia: the horse relay system and the goods caravan. It suggests that each of these should be seen as a ‘mobility constellation’ involving entanglements of mobility, narrative and practice, and implying different social relations and experience of the environment. It is argued that the relay system in particular involved abstract distance–speed calculation and that this enabled the conception of extensive cross-border geographies. The paper also explains why herders who took part in (fast) relay and (slow) caravan duties greatly preferred the latter.","PeriodicalId":43430,"journal":{"name":"Inner Asia","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2020-04-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1163/22105018-12340133","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44197043","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-10-18DOI: 10.1163/22105018-12340125
G. Delaplace
This paper is an attempt to understand dwelling in Mongolia as the cultivated balancing of three interconnected virtues, prominently exhibited by some particular characters and exemplary people, yet actually to varying degrees expected from anybody else. These virtues are skilfulness (being mergen), force (hiimor’) and power or diplomacy (erh); they are best embodied by archers, wrestlers and rulers, respectively. Drawing on three ethnographic vignettes featuring a troubled diviner, an unlucky young man and a confused anthropologist, this paper highlights how different kinds of people strive to dwell well in post-socialist Mongolia, associating elements that compose the world they live in and checking the conditions in which they might impose themselves in it.
{"title":"The Ruler, the Wrestler, and the Archer","authors":"G. Delaplace","doi":"10.1163/22105018-12340125","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/22105018-12340125","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000This paper is an attempt to understand dwelling in Mongolia as the cultivated balancing of three interconnected virtues, prominently exhibited by some particular characters and exemplary people, yet actually to varying degrees expected from anybody else. These virtues are skilfulness (being mergen), force (hiimor’) and power or diplomacy (erh); they are best embodied by archers, wrestlers and rulers, respectively. Drawing on three ethnographic vignettes featuring a troubled diviner, an unlucky young man and a confused anthropologist, this paper highlights how different kinds of people strive to dwell well in post-socialist Mongolia, associating elements that compose the world they live in and checking the conditions in which they might impose themselves in it.","PeriodicalId":43430,"journal":{"name":"Inner Asia","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2019-10-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1163/22105018-12340125","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44273054","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-10-18DOI: 10.1163/22105018-12340126
C. Stépanoff
Humans have a unique ability to coordinate their imaginations and together explore virtual spaces. Shamanic traditions have cultivated this ability and developed powerful techniques to share mental travels. This article discusses two basic types of shamanic seance spread among indigenous peoples in North Asia and partly in North America and explores the relational and sensory-cognitive contrasts between these ritual techniques. One is carried out in the dark and the audience is more focused on hearing, while in the other the tent is light and watching the shaman’s act is a central part of the participants’ experience. This article describes the geographical distribution of these rituals and analyses the different ways in which they divide cognitive labour.
{"title":"Dark Tent and Light Tent","authors":"C. Stépanoff","doi":"10.1163/22105018-12340126","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/22105018-12340126","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000Humans have a unique ability to coordinate their imaginations and together explore virtual spaces. Shamanic traditions have cultivated this ability and developed powerful techniques to share mental travels. This article discusses two basic types of shamanic seance spread among indigenous peoples in North Asia and partly in North America and explores the relational and sensory-cognitive contrasts between these ritual techniques. One is carried out in the dark and the audience is more focused on hearing, while in the other the tent is light and watching the shaman’s act is a central part of the participants’ experience. This article describes the geographical distribution of these rituals and analyses the different ways in which they divide cognitive labour.","PeriodicalId":43430,"journal":{"name":"Inner Asia","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2019-10-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1163/22105018-12340126","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43740201","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-10-18DOI: 10.1163/22105018-12340124
D. Bumochir
This paper aims to unveil sources of nationalist sentiments that are often disregarded, in part because they are often given ‘pejorative labels’ such as ‘populist’ and ‘resource nationalist’ by those who promote the market economy and mining industry. Anthropologists can extend their research beyond such labelling and find out what is at the origin of such popular mobilisations and consequent political decisions against mining. I find that the culturally accepted term nutag, which means birthplace, homeland and country of origin, is the basic source of nationalist sentiments that resist mining. The term nutag has evolved from meaning one’s naturally related birthplace to referring also to the politically independent country of Mongolia. The ideas associated with the original meaning make such nationalist sentiments different from, and much broader than, the idea of controlling natural resources indicated by the term ‘resource nationalism’.
{"title":"Nationalist Sentiments Obscured by ‘Pejorative Labels’","authors":"D. Bumochir","doi":"10.1163/22105018-12340124","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/22105018-12340124","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000This paper aims to unveil sources of nationalist sentiments that are often disregarded, in part because they are often given ‘pejorative labels’ such as ‘populist’ and ‘resource nationalist’ by those who promote the market economy and mining industry. Anthropologists can extend their research beyond such labelling and find out what is at the origin of such popular mobilisations and consequent political decisions against mining. I find that the culturally accepted term nutag, which means birthplace, homeland and country of origin, is the basic source of nationalist sentiments that resist mining. The term nutag has evolved from meaning one’s naturally related birthplace to referring also to the politically independent country of Mongolia. The ideas associated with the original meaning make such nationalist sentiments different from, and much broader than, the idea of controlling natural resources indicated by the term ‘resource nationalism’.","PeriodicalId":43430,"journal":{"name":"Inner Asia","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2019-10-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1163/22105018-12340124","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49578975","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-10-18DOI: 10.1163/22105018-12340123
Richard P. Taupier
This paper draws on primary Oyirod and Mongol sources concerning the rise of the seventeenth-century Jöüngars. It relies on eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Mongolian historical texts to identify the 1638 creation of an Oyirod Jöüngar [Left Wing] and Baroun Gar [Right Wing]. This origin of the Jöüngars differs substantially from historical accounts that project existence of a Jöüngar to an earlier time. From Sarayin Gerel [Moon Light] and other sources we learn that the creation of the Jöüngar Khanate was sudden and even unlikely after the division of Baatar Khong Tayiji’s people among his sons. The Jöüngars were so weakened by this division that the Dalai Lama gave the title of Chechen Khaan to the Khoshoud Ochirtu Tayiji in 1666. The Yeke Caaji [Great Code] describes Oyirod political organisation in 1640. Sarayin Gerel also provides details of the reign of Galdan Boshugtu from 1672 until 1692.
{"title":"The Rise of the Jöüngars Based on Primary Oyirod Sources","authors":"Richard P. Taupier","doi":"10.1163/22105018-12340123","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/22105018-12340123","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000This paper draws on primary Oyirod and Mongol sources concerning the rise of the seventeenth-century Jöüngars. It relies on eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Mongolian historical texts to identify the 1638 creation of an Oyirod Jöüngar [Left Wing] and Baroun Gar [Right Wing]. This origin of the Jöüngars differs substantially from historical accounts that project existence of a Jöüngar to an earlier time. From Sarayin Gerel [Moon Light] and other sources we learn that the creation of the Jöüngar Khanate was sudden and even unlikely after the division of Baatar Khong Tayiji’s people among his sons. The Jöüngars were so weakened by this division that the Dalai Lama gave the title of Chechen Khaan to the Khoshoud Ochirtu Tayiji in 1666. The Yeke Caaji [Great Code] describes Oyirod political organisation in 1640. Sarayin Gerel also provides details of the reign of Galdan Boshugtu from 1672 until 1692.","PeriodicalId":43430,"journal":{"name":"Inner Asia","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2019-10-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1163/22105018-12340123","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41354176","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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