Mongolians have long known of the association between marmots and the plague. We examine their understanding of the marmot not only as a biological species that can harbour the plague, but also from a cosmological perspective as a chimerical being with potential punishment on hunters who have transgressed ancient taboos. To do so we deconstruct the multiple image of the chimerical marmot in legends, stories, and beliefs. Many Mongolians believe that if the marmot is over-exploited and the population decimated through excessive hunting, hunting households may be punished with infections of the plague.
This paper recounts the entangled histories of three distinctly Russian movements, namely: Soviet state ideology, Russian cosmism, and Eurasianism. Despite harboring pseudoscientific and mystical ideas specific to Russia, all three intellectual movements have been propagated by their followers as “universal sciences,” and all three have vied for scientific supremacy and universal acceptance. Suppressed by the Bolsheviks and their state ideology as “unscientific” in the 1920s, Russian cosmism and Eurasianism led an esoteric underground existence during the Soviet period and re-emerged during perestroika, seeking not only to reclaim their “scientific” status but also to potentially fill the perplexing vacuum left by the ensuing demise of Soviet state ideology.
For Mongols their dogs are the most intimate and loveable animals. Dogs also have an important symbolic significance for their owners. Therefore, beating or killing dogs is considered a sin. As a dog’s feeding bowl is considered to be a ‘circle of abundance’, (hishgiin hüree), it is forbidden to step over it. However, dogs are also believed to be a source of pollution and danger. Hence they are kept out of the Mongolian tent (ger) and treated as inferiors. Their feeding bowls see only leftovers. In this article, I examine the reasons for this apparently contradictory treatment of dogs in Mongolia by appealing to traditional cosmology.
This paper describes a brief history of sexuality in Mongolian society as related to the various types of political regime that dominated the course of the last century. Based on the assertion that sexuality is subject to change, the central argument of the paper is that, by looking at the nature of sexual practices and values, it is possible to describe the very nature of political power that is one of the important drivers to bring about such changes.
This paper is about folk healers in Kalmykia, southwest Russia, locally referred to as medlegchi, and their eclectic healing methods that combine elements of the earlier religions of Buddhism, shamanism and folk beliefs with modern theologies, ideas and concepts. Although the paper focuses upon the contemporary situation of folk healers, the author also briefly describes the development of Kalmyk folk healing in order to explain its varied and de-centralised contemporary nature. Alleging to receive their healing knowledge directly from their guardian deities (the majority of whom are Buddhist gods), all Kalmyk folk healers are eclectic in their methods, some more so than others. For example, those who are members of the community Vozrozhdenie [Revival], discussed in the paper, differ from many others by the speed with which they absorb ultra-new ideas and anxieties into their healing practices, which today include UFOs, a cosmic god and aliens, among other things.
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