Fortune, Emotion and Poetics: The Intersubjective Experience of Mongolian Musical Sociality

Abstract

This paper explores the spiritual esoteric imperative of social singing during the life-cycle event of an Altai Urianghai wedding. Social singing in this context creates a ‘musical-social heterophony’, interweaving layers of singing and talking, creating a space that is never solely social, nor solely musical. The creation of this space is described as bayar tsengel, or celebration, and is an attempt to sway this event into a positive and beautiful (saihan) space. Each wedding guest contributes to this through ‘gifting’ songs, and if the right celebration is created, it enhances the creation of fortune (hishig buyan) for the newly married couple. I argue that each wedding guest negotiates the indeterminacy of this musical social space, forming a type of Mongolian musical intersubjectivity. This intersubjective musical-social experience includes not only interactions between guests, but interactions with an esoteric dimension of causal forces that could either create or dispel fortune.

Keywords:

• Postsocialist Cultural Practice
• Mongolia
• Sociality
• Aesthetics
• Kinship
• Morality

Notes

[1] The names provided in this paper are pseudonyms.

[2] By ‘perceived negative social outcomes’, I am referring to any kind of social dispute between family members, or the two family groups present. Social disputes could occur for a large number of reasons—from social inaction, or incorrect actions carried out at the wedding, or potential previous grudges surfacing at a busy ceremonial event.

[3] It is common for Altai Urianghai long-songs or urtyn duu to be sung in weddings in this district. Songs viewed as belonging to this specific district are typically sung. It is difficult to say how many long-songs are sung, as it depends on the number of knowledgeable singers present, and a person's decisions on the day. But suffice to say, long-songs are typically sung to initiate singing at an Altai Urianghai wedding and through various points throughout when a person decides. Because of the different composition of guests, the musical sociality created at each wedding is unique to that wedding. Wedding songs also differ between different regions of Mongolia.

[4] Throughout this article, I follow Tsogoo's explanation of fortune being ‘created’ through singing good songs, where he uses the verb boloh, or ‘to create’. This description of fortune being ‘created’ through musical sociality fits in with how Tsogoo also describes the creation of celebration, bayar tsengel, and beauty, saihan. Empson (2011, 14) describes the Mongolian Buriad as stating that they ‘harness’ fortune (hishig hürteh) where she states it ‘points to a respectful act of receiving, accepting, harnessing or sourcing an allotment, or share of fortune’. Whilst Tsogoo uses a different verb to describe his musical engagement with fortune, I wish to argue that the concept of gifting one part (singing a song) to engage with a whole (fortune) is a thread that runs across both Empson and my understanding of Mongolian spheres of causation and fortune.

[5] In decades before, a new bride travelled by horse to the encampment of her husband's family. Whilst now jeeps are often used to ‘bring the bride’ to her new home, in poetics and action there is not a lot of symbolic differentiation between horse and jeep in this important transition. During this wedding, prior to the jeep returning to the provincial capital with the bride's family, a member of the groom's family sprinkled milk onto the tyres of the jeeps to bless and call fortune for their return journey.

[6] Transcribed in Mongolian for me by Purevdorj in 2009. English translation by the author. Whilst in this song text, the bride is missing her mother, I wish to emphasise that this missing is not so much for a particular parent but for her natal family and her parents as a whole. In the version of this song text published in Katuu (2011), the young woman is missing her father instead of her mother. I have chosen to use the version that includes the mother, as this was how it was transcribed to me once by Purevdorj, who is the husband of the then district Cultural Centre director.

[7] This word is Goviltoi. It conjures an image of a horse that has a round, grooved back, and is of such a healthy weight that you cannot see the horse's spine.

[8] Kamimura ([1995]1996, 4) notes how people when drinking at a nair can be ‘forgiven for allowing [their] feelings free reign’. In his experience of a wedding nair in the same rural district in the early 1990s, Kamimura noted how singing can be ‘used to mediate the repression or freedom of feeling which alcohol causes’ (Kamimura [1995]1996, 5) to flow with drunken expressions of emotions.

[9] I would like to sincerely thank SOAS PhD candidate Jenny Coates for providing English translations of these quoted excerpts from Kamimura's article in Japanese.

[10] The ability to perform a clear, projected melody was favoured over precise knowledge of an exact number of verses, resulting in an overall emphasis on performance rather than technical proficiency. This emphasis was also apparent in district stage concerts as well as ceremonial events. Marsh (2002, 46) also notes this emphasis on performance over technical proficiency in his discussion of rural pre-socialist performance contexts of the Mongolian morin huur or horse-head fiddle.

[11] The social pressure surrounding gift-giving in wider Altai Urianghai social life is immense, with a pressure to give and also receive gifts. This occurs during ceremonial contexts, including Tsagaan Sar, or the Lunar New Year, but also extends into the everyday such as visiting friends. When visiting, the host is obligated to give the guest food, and the guest is obligated to receive it; visits often take a while so as to make sure such an exchange occurs.

[12] Because of this, people with a birth year difference of six or twelve years would not be chosen to bring a bride into the ger. I was told people would not marry someone whose year alignment was six or twelve years apart from their own, as it was likely they would get divorced.

[13] See also http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oEqoROJjGMY (accessed September 17, 2012).