Is shamanism just a sham?

(Guest post from Audrey)

Allow me to be smug: Not many tourists get to see shamans. Like Stephen and myself, most tourists come with a sceptical mind, and shamans are too proud to show their crafts to ignorant, hostile non-believers. We only got the chance through a friend from London, who in turn introduced us to her aunt who is a close relative to the shaman we visited.

I went in trying to be as objective and academic as possible. From this perspective of the curious “investigative journalist” who bombarded the shaman (called Gonchitsuren) with batteries of questions, it was easy to come to premature conclusions from his sensible responses and eloquence. Yes, shamans square each other up by studying the shades of colours emanating from their head; yes, shamans have the grave responsibility of teaching younger, lost generations “the right way”, as well as pray for rain during periods of draught. And yes, there is some gravity, and substance to what he said.

And yet the costume looked too flashy and the rituals too orchestrated for me not to question the ingenuity of it all. First of all you have the gadgets: mirrors hung about the chest and tummy to protect the inner soul and deflect evil spirits during the vulnerable trance session; rattles to impress and attract the attention of the selected spirits; eagle claws and bear paws to establish the bridge between the realms of mankind and spirits; seven-coloured strips, a bit like Joseph’s technicolour dreamcoat for I don’t know what...

And then there is the trance itself. Gonchitsuren fell into trance way too quickly! Maybe I was being harsh – just like any disciples of 21st century civilisation I might be too ready to denounce the whole ritual as a performance (and a shaman does not dance his dance in order to prove himself to us anyways), but how can you beat the drum for just a minute and have the selected spirit come into you so quickly? (But then Gonchitsuren has already forewarned us that “spirits travel more quickly than our thoughts.”) How can you alter your state of mind in just a snap? As Gonchitsuren beat the drum his dance rhythm became more frantic, and then with a sudden jerk of movement he collapsed to the floor, only to be pulled up by his two assistants who stood close by.

There came an eerie silence – the drumbeat has stopped – and then came the croaks of an old man. For a minute I was suspended in surprise and awe: Maybe it is real after all, for how can Gonchitsuren feign this voice (or could he)? His two assistants started chatting to the spirit in a homely, casual manner, as you would when you are on the phone with granny. “Was the journey tiring? Want some cigarettes? We have guests with us here today!”

The spirit was slow in his speech, but burnt through two packs of cigarettes in his 45-minute visit. One by one he summoned members from the audience to seat beside him and receive his blessings. Stephen and I didn’t have to speak to the spirit, although in hindsight I probably should have said my name and “Thanks you, Good Bye!” at the end of our blessing. The spirit, however, told us not to be afraid (I wasn’t scared in the least bit – Gonchitsuren was feigning after all!) and swiped his whip down our back, beat us slightly on the bum and thighs, and pressed his hand on my head, while muttering something else. My friend translated his words afterwards: The spirit realised that we were travellers from afar (without being told by anybody) and told us to roll around in a mountain before leaving Mongolia, an advice that not even my friend made much fuss of. In the end the spirit blew some air on a small bowl of goat milk and handed it over to me, which I gulped down.

One by one we receive blessings from Mr. Old Man Spirit. I wished I could understand some Mongolian as he continued with his muttering, but our friend later explained that the spirit used such an ancient language that even she had difficulty understanding half of it.

So Mr. Spirit drank, smoked and sat there muttering for 45 minutes. Without much drama it eventually became tedious and repetitive, and made me understand what Stephen must have felt when he visited my Granny, who speaks no English. My mind started to wander, I started to pick holes and wonder whether I could have spent this hour more effectively elsewhere. After what seemed like eternity, the spirit decided to fly home. Gonchitsuren beat his drum again, and in a few second’s time returned to his normal human self. “Other spirits wanted in, so I had to hurry the last bit to block their way.” When my friend commented that he smoked a lot during the trance, he replied casually, “Why, this is my first cigarette of today! Ancient spirits are used to smoking pipes using self-rolled tobacco. They have to smoke more to compensate for the much diluted modern-day cigarettes.”

I rolled my eyes.

Mongolia: The People

(Still having problems posting from China, so no links and photos again)

In his 1987 book “The Iron Rooster”, Paul Theroux describes the Mongols:

“Once these people had lived on the plains and in the mountains. Now they lived in two-room flats in this lifeless and stark city. They were in every sense a subject race, and in this – one of the largest and emptiest countries on earth – they lived cheek by jowl. They lived out of the world, almost totally cut off. It had not made them angry. It had kept them innocent in many ways. There was something very sweet about the Mongolians. Perhaps that was the whole point about Mongolia: that after a Soviet-inspired revolution in which everything was destroyed and swept away – religion, the old ecomony, the army, the social order – the country was so changed that it could not function without Soviet help. The Mongolians had been reduced to a state of infancy. All their old habits and institutions were gone. The Soviets stepped into this vacuum: they brought Soviet building and urban structures, Soviet railways and roads, Soviet schools, and the Soviet ideology displaced Buddhism”.

In some ways it’s difficult to argue with his points. The Mongol people do seem to put up with hardships without complaining about them, and do still seem to be trying to grow up again to become their own mature democracy (it’s been 20 years now).

The all complain about corruption within government, and I do certainly believe it, but it’s back to the old French quote “Every nation has the government it deserves”. People we met here don’t seem to be interested in their politics (except for Dopa, a lady we know who we’ll come to later), but in the good old fashioned pursuit of wealth. To me, it’s the best way of the status quo keeping them from getting involved in politics and upsetting the gravy train (like the owners of our hostel).

During the communist period, the literacy rate increased from less than 5% to 96%, but I still get the feeling that they still have a long way to go. People everywhere use calculators to show prices, which make sense, saves you having to write it out on paper all the time for the foreigners. But I have witnessed a waitress adding 1000 (there are 2000 turgrits to the pound), 1000 and 1000 on a calculator to show me the total, and then using it to work out the change from 10000.

People can also be surprisingly open, by UK standards. For example, it was not uncommon to see women breastfeeding in the middle of the street.

While in Mongolia, we also got to meet up with a family who were friends of someone Audrey knew in London (thanks Einav). Ganbold and (especially) Dopa were a lively couple in their 60s. We went with Ganbold to the wrestling and the black market (where he got his cigarettes nicked). Dopa organised a shamanistic ceremony for us, as well as a trip to a local national park.

They served us dinner at their flat, with a healthy helping of vodka to go with it. They also accidentally found a plastic milk bottle of airag, fermented mare’s milk. Some people may find it tasty, but since it tasted of liquid gorgonzola, I found it pretty repugnant. It was interesting to get a taste of it though, as normally it is only available over the winter, but they’d discovered it a couple of days previous when their grandkid tried to pour some on his cereal. I preferred their vodka.

I’ll go into more about Ganbold and Dofa in the next post.

Mongolia: The Capital

(As mentioned previously, due to the Great Firewall of China (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_websites_blocked_in_the_People's_Republic_of_China), posting is a pain, and posting link and photos isn’t possible, so each blog entry will be that bit more plain until Hong Kong (unless I could be bothered posting them somewhere else and putting links to them).)

Ulaanbaatar can be quite crazy, and would be a stressful place to live in. Crossing the street is a nightmare, and traffic barely obey signals, pedestrian crossings etc. The best way to navigate the madness is to make sure you cross when a local is crossing, and make sure they are traffic side, for a buffer, just in case.

It also felt relatively unsafe in comparison to Russian cities. The Russians have a bad press for their country being a dangerous place, but we didn’t get that feeling at all. I think if you want to get into business in Russia, that’s when the danger comes in. The Russian Mafia can’t be bothered with small fry tourists when there is so much more money (with less hassle) to be made elsewhere.

The amount of cops on the street also made it feel safe, typical authoritarian state. The police can be considered dangerous, as many people told us, but again, foreign tourists can be too much of a hassle for them, as they may complain to embassies etc. Better to try and get bribes off the locals.

On arrival at the train station, we met with a guy who’d we’d shared a hostel with in Irkutsk, and the first thing he told us was that him and a mate almost got mugged the previous night after a few beers. The number of people we met with similar stories or bag-slashing/pick-pocketing stories was quite high.

At the hostel, the Golden Gobi, we met a few interesting people (including the other guy who almost got mugged). There was an Aussie who’d biked all the way through China to UB illegally; an American who wanted to bike from UB to Russia, and then onto the Stans (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central%20Asia) (he failed after 4 days, Mongolia is difficult biking terrain, and lonely); a Japanese marathon women (who we guessed is about 65); German couple who bought horses and headed out of town on them; a couple of musicians who played Beatles songs very badly, but in an endearing way.

The hostel owners were simply money grabbing gits. They could be very friendly and charming when they think they can get money out of you, but do a volte-face when there it seems there is no more money to be made. I do have to admit that their hostel was very good though, centrally located with wifi, a good kitchen and a couple of chill-out rooms, and well-priced.

Initially they were very friendly as we wanted to do a tour with them, which is where I think they make their real money (the well-priced hostel may be a loss-leader). After the tour though, they shunted us into a room in a different part of the building, with only a shower. Also, they wouldn’t give us all the info needed to get to the Office of Immigration so that Audrey could extend her visa; eventually we used one of their drivers to take us there, as they said it would be easier to get it sorted. It wasn’t easier, as the driver didn’t know the regulations, and we were able to get a Taxi for half the price when we went back a few days later to pick up the passport.

We bought tickets for a wrestling tournament (lasted 4 hours for £1.50, great value). With 256 competitors being whittled down to 1 winner, it starts off with about 15-20 fights going on at any one time on the arena floor. Battle Royal (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle%20royal)/Royal Rumble (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal%20Rumble) wouldn’t be in it. Some of the match-ups were over in seconds (due to their being no age/weight groups), while others could last for up to 30 minutes. There were a quite few impressive moves and gruelling battles, while all was done with the upmost sportsmanship.

There was also a huge “Black Market” there, where it was possible to buy nearly anything (we heard rumours that the German couple bought their horses there). Was pretty dodgy, but also extremely interesting. The International Intellectual Museum (really a wooden puzzle museum) kept us amused for an hour or so with those complicated wooden puzzles that you can only solve if you know the knack amongst other things.

Food was good; we had an interesting mix of local food, decent western grub and other east Asian dishes. After each excursion, we tended to go for anything that wasn’t local, as there is only so much mutton a person can take.

Trouble posting blogs in China

Yes, the great fire wall of china is getting in the way at minute. Can't write anything at the minute, as the way I'm accessing it will probably get dropped soon.