Nomadizing among the Mongols

In the summer of 2008, as a young anthropology student with only a fragile base in Mongolian language and culture, I embarked on my first field trip to Mongolia. Not knowing how to say ‘nomadic pastoralism’, I responded to any Mongolians who asked me what had brought me to their country that I was studying ‘animal husbandry’ (mal aj akhui). It was only much later that I learned that I could not have picked a better term: Mongolians do not really speak of ‘nomadic’ husbandry, just of husbandry, because Mongolian husbandry is almost always nomadic. In fact, herders do not use the term ‘nomad’ (nüüdelchin) to speak about themselves (see Gardelle 2010: 24). This term, and probably the term ‘husbandry’ (mal aj akhui), seems to have only appeared in the first half of the twentieth century, with the introduction of lifestyles and activities previously absent or associated with other nationalities, particularly Russian and Chinese (agriculture, mining, trading activities) (see Legrand 1975: 62). Nowadays, bookshops throughout Ulaanbaatar, the Mongolian capital, sell encyclopaedic accounts of the various aspects of Mongolian ‘nomadic pastoralism’ (nüüdliin mal aj akhui) or ‘nomadic culture’ (nüüdliin soyol); but when a Mongolian herder is asked what he does, he answers that he is a ‘herder’ (malchin; someone who takes care of the livestock, mal).

As a Russian speaker, and with four months’ experience in the Mongolian field, I decided to extend my study of nomadic pastoralism to the Mongols located on the other side of the border, the Buryats of Russia. This, unfortunately, provided me with another opportunity to confirm my ignorance about the concepts of nomadic pastoralism here. I knew that in Russia there were more ways of practising pastoralism, especially in sedentary forms, so I searched for a situation that was comparable to Mongolia. This time, however, knowing that the term ‘nomad’ was commonly used in Russian (kochevnik), when I arrived in Ulan-Ude, the capital of the Buryat Republic, I asked if I could stay with a family of yurt-living ‘nomads’ in the Buryat District of Aga (Transbaikalian region).