Religion among the Western Yugur

 

Traditionally, the Yugur people adhered to the Buddhist-Lamaist faith, mixed with shamanist elements.
      Due to poor economic circumstances, the Western Yugur in the steppe could not support a monastery with full-time lamas, and most monks had to support themselves by means of animal husbandry. The monks were allowed to marry and set up a family.
      Shamanism was apparently already declining among the Western Yugur in the steppe by the time Malov stayed here. His landlord Anjang Sanyshkap had given up his function of shaman because he did not like the traditional way of disposing of a shaman's corpse (see below), but wished to be enterred instead. The only practising shaman at that time was Khorangat Nam Sershchap, who suffered from alcohol and opium abuse. By the time Hermanns visited the Yugur in the late 1930s, it was too late to collect information on Yugur shamanism: the last shaman had died in 1935, before he could have handed down the prayers and their meaning to his student.
 

Shamanist texts

• The Celestial Ranks
• The White Horsemen
• The Nine
• The Red Horsemen
• The Giant Ulugh Turq
• A Red Horse Consecrated to the Khan of Heaven
• The Burial of a Shaman

Myths

• Mola
• The Origin of the Peoples

Pictures

Have a look at some historical pictures of religious ceremonies (click on the pictures to see a larger image):

• Pictures of the Consecration of a Horse
• Pictures of Sprinkling and Blessing Ceremonies

 

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Back to the Western Yugur Steppe