Tragic Spirits

Shamanism, Memory, and Gender in Contemporary Mongolia

Manduhai Buyandelger

• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9780226086569, 9780226086552
• eBook ISBN: 9780226013091
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Ethnic & Tribal Religion
• Index: Social Sciences

The collapse of socialism at the end of the twentieth century brought devastating changes to Mongolia. Economic shock therapy—an immediate liberalization of trade and privatization of publicly owned assets—quickly led to impoverishment, especially in rural parts of the country, where Tragic Spirits takes place. Following the travels of the nomadic Buryats, Manduhai Buyandelger tells a story not only of economic devastation but also a remarkable Buryat response to it—the revival of shamanic practices after decades of socialist suppression.

 

Attributing their current misfortunes to returning ancestral spirits who are vengeful over being abandoned under socialism, the Buryats are now at once trying to appease their ancestors and recover the history of their people through shamanic practice. Thoroughly documenting this process, Buyandelger situates it as part of a global phenomenon, comparing the rise of shamanism in liberalized Mongolia to its similar rise in Africa and Indonesia. In doing so, she offers a sophisticated analysis of the way economics, politics, gender, and other factors influence the spirit world and the crucial workings of cultural memory.

INDEX

Page references followed by f denote figures. References to endnotes give the endnote page number followed by n, the note number, and the text page of endnote citation in parentheses.

abortions, 177, 181, 277n4 (177)

Agamben, Giorgio, 47

agency, 69; political, 136; of shamanic clients, 204; shaman’s, 182; of spirits, 13, 14; of the state, 74, 95

agriculture, 54, 106–7, 109, 113

albin (spirits), 232, 238

Altan Khan, 42

Amar (grandfather of Baasan), 253–60, 261f

Amgalan, Dagdangiin, 89–90

ancestor, 1, 4, 20, 21, 41, 46

ancestral death pollution, 247, 250

Appadurai, Arjun, 70

Arin Arvan Gurvan Noyod (the Thirteen Lords of the North), 45

arrow, 43, 55

Ashforth, Adam, 7–8, 125

Asian Development Bank, 7, 10

assimilation, cultural, 47

Association of Political Victims, 95

assumption, 125, 275; of gender, 136, 229; of malice, 127, 129

Atkinson, Jane, 16, 27, 31, 170

Atwood, Christopher P., 271, 275

audience(s) (shamanic), 7, 8, 16–19, 23, 26–32, 36, 41, 46, 62–65, 77, 125, 132–35, 142, 147, 154–61, 167, 188–89, 191, 200–201, 203–7, 213, 219, 221, 223, 225, 227, 229, 254, 274, 280

Baasan (physics teacher), 233–66; Baigal and, 160; brother (Bat), 233, 235–46; death of brother, 233, 235–36, 240–45, 250; finding shamanic errors, 240–44; genealogy of, 233–35, 238, 256–62, 261f; health of, 237, 265; Ichin Choinhor temple divinations, 247–48, 250; memory of her father and grandmother, 252–54; old female spirit and, 245; Otgon and Amar (ancestors/uheer), 253–64, 261f; state institutions and, 264–65; on Tömör, 208; uheer and, 253–55

Baigal (shaman; granddaughter of Khorlo), 132, 151–53, 155–61, 164–66, 264

Baikal (lake), 22, 23, 32, 42–43, 48, 221, 230, 268

Baljima (origin spirit), 212–13

Banzarov, Dorji (Buryat scholar), 28

Barga Mongols, 117

barter and exchange, 108

Bat (brother of Baasan), 235–46; death of, 233, 235–36, 240–45, 250; employment of, 237; Golden Box, 236, 242, 246–47; initiation as shaman, 236, 242–44; visions by, 238, 239

Bataille, Georges,...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Copyright
• Title Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• List of Abbreviations
• Note on Translation and Transliteration
• Introduction. The Return of the Suppressed
• One. Mobile Histories
• Two. Technologies of Forgetting, State Socialism, and Potential Memories
• Three. Genealogies of Misfortune
• Four. Thriving and Silenced Stories
• Five. Ironies of Gender Neutrality
• Six. Persuasion and Power
• Seven. Incomplete Lives
• Notes
• Glossary
• References
• Index