Naadam Festival in Mongolia

Over the past week we have been soaking up the festivals of Naadam. The Naadam festival, or eriyn gurvan nadaam, is the biggest festival of the year for Mongolians. It runs for three days in all parts of the country and highlights the greatest athletes in horse racing, archery, and wrestling, Mongolia's most popular sports. Women can participate in all events but the wrestling category. The word Nadaam means game or competition in Mongolian. This festival has been held for centuries as a form of memorial celebration, as an annual sacrificial ritual honoring various mountain gods or to celebrate a community endeavor.
HISTORY
The origins of the Naadam Festival go back to times primordial when horse was domesticated and first hunters learned how to ride them. Though the historical evidence is not available, the festival roots can be traced in the culture to such Central Asian nomadic tribes as Huns, Scyphians and Turks.
As early as 3,000 year B.C. the holiday become a regular national event when all the nomad tribes would come together to show the best of their physical strength, riding and shooting skills, qualities vital for the survival of nomad herders and hunters.
This tradition of annual festival survived throughout the centuries of turbulent history of Central Asian nomads. After came an official celebration of the National Revolution's victory. On June 11 the revolutionaries mounted a successful attack on Urgoo, the capital city, and expelled Chinese military garrison. Nowadays, it is simply the Naadam Festival.

Our first experience was to go out to the country side to see a Mimi Naadam that is held by one of the townships before the grand Naadam in UB.
The company had arranged buses to take employees out of town and after a three hour drive we arrived at the area where the events where being held. The scenery was amazing. The area was a flat plain surround by mountains.

Photo: Paige with local boy

We ventured off the bus and could see an area where people had gathered in a large circle. On the outer of the circle where horse riders sitting on their horses watching the wrestling. There were concrete seats surrounding the circle, where spectators where watching the middle of the circle were the men where wrestling.

Photo: Horse riders watching the wrestling

It was such an amazing experience to be soaking up this culture. Paige was running around to my horror as there where horses everywhere being ridden around the circle. The surprising thing was many of the riders where very young children. We had to keep a close eye on Paige as I was very worried about horses kicking her if she went to close from behind. Once again people wanted to take her photo, Miss Superstar.

Photo: Wrestlers doing dance before wrestling

Photo: Two wrestlers, wrestling

Photo: One wrestling position

Photo: Wrestler gets another wrestler to the ground

Photo: Losing wrestler on the ground

Photo: Winning wrestler doing dance for victory

After a while there was a break in the wrestling and everyone bolted down to a finish line of a horse race that was being ran. As we headed down to the finish line there where cars, horse riders and trucks speeding past us, it was such a crazy site, madness really. As the riders and horses crossed the finish line the winner rode past us with people trying to touch the horse, it was so dangerous, we tried to get out the way to a safer place. I couldn't’t understand why people where trying to grab the horses. The poor child rider was grabbed by another rider on to another horse and the people just converged to the horse. I found out later that if you touch the winning horse and rub the sweat on your self it is meant to bring you luck. How strange I thought. The culture in Mongolia is sometimes hard to understand the people’s beliefs but as I say “What ever blows your hair back”.
This day had now set the scene for the big Naadam in the coming week in town. So let me tell you a bit about the sports that make up Naadam.

HORSE RACES
Mongolians have a high regard for horses since, for centuries, they have relied on them for transport, sustenance, and companionship. During the races, up to 1,000 horses can be chosen to compete. The horse races are broken down into six categories based on the age of the horses. For example, two-year-old horses race for 10 miles (16 kilometers) and seven-year-olds for 17 miles (30 kilometres). The race is conducted on the open grasslands with no set track or course. Children from the ages of 5 to 13 are chosen as jockeys since this guarantees that the race tests the horse’s skill and not the riders. The small size of the jockeys also increases the horses' endurance. Even still, jockeys train for months before Naadam and the horses are given a special diet. The winning jockey is praised with the title tumny ekh or "leader of ten thousand" and the five winning horses are talked about and revered in poetry and music. The losing two-year-old horse are also allotted special attention by being serenaded with a song. Music is very important before the race too, as the audience sings traditional songs and the jockeys sing a pre-race song called a gingo. Eating and drinking is the other "sport" during the Naadam festival. The horse races are held in the steppes behind these people who stop to drink tea and arak, fermented mares' milk. Cold meat pancakes, called khuurshuur , ice cream, bread, and fruits are other popular festival foods.

Photo: Two very young horse riders

ARCHERY
The sport of archery originated around the 11th century, during the time of Khanate warfare. Contestants dress in traditional costumes and use a bent bow constructed of horn, bark, and wood.

The arrows, made from willow branches and vulture feathers are shot at round, leather targets with grey, yellow or red rings. Men must stand 75 meters and women 60 meters from the target. Judges, standing near the targets, assess each shot with a cry, called a uukhai, and a raised hand. The winning archer, or mergen, is the one who hits the targets the most times.
360 targets are put up for the archery competition. In this competition both men and women participate; men fire 40 arrows from 75 meters away while women fire 20 arrows from 60 meters away. Before the contestant shoots, the audience shouts "Hit the target!", and if he or she does, the audience says "Hit!". The winners of the contest are granted the titles of "National marksman" and "National marks woman".

Photo: Where the arrows are shot too and each arrow has to hit small black targets

WRESTLING
The wrestling competitions begin around noon on the first day of the festival and end on the second day. They are quit unlike American wrestling matches in form an have other two important differences. First, there are no weight divisions. A small wrestler can be pitted against someone two times his weight. This can lead to some very interesting matches. Second, there are no time limits. The loser of a match is the wrestler who falls first. A fall is when any part of a wrestler’s body, except his hands or feet, touches the ground. Titles are given to winners of a number of rounds: Falcon to those winning five rounds, Elephant for seven rounds, and Lion to the one winning the whole tournament.
One elite wrestler was once given the title "Eye-Pleasing Nationally Famous Mighty and Invincible Giant." Wrestlers honor the judges and their attendants with a dance called devekh, or eagle dance. The winner also performs the eagle dance after the loser of the bout takes off his jacket and walks under the winner's arm. Wrestlers wear small, over the shoulder vests called zodog, and snug shorts called shuudag. The heavy, traditional Mongolian boots are called gutuls. 512 or 1024 wrestlers meet in a single-elimination tournament that lasts nine or ten rounds. Mongolian traditional wrestling is an untimed competition in which wrestlers lose if they touch the ground. Wrestlers wear two-piece costumes consisting of a tight shoulder vest (zodog) and shorts (shuudag). Wrestlers are exclusively male.

Shagai (Mongolian: Шагай) is the Mongolian word for the cuboid bone of the ankle of a sheep. The shagai are collected and used for traditional Mongolian games and fortunetelling. They are often painted bright colours. Such bones were used by many ancient cultures, and were the first forms of dice. Shagai games are especially popular during the Mongolian summer holiday of Naadam. In shagai dice, the rolled shagai generally land on one of four sides: horse, camel, sheep or goat. A fifth side, cow, is possible on uneven ground. Mongolians still exchange shagai today as tokens of friendship. The shagai are kept in a little pouch. In fortunetelling, four shagai are rolled on the ground; the two convex sides, horse and sheep, are considered lucky, with horse being the luckiest. The sides with concave indents, goat and camel, are deemed unlucky; rolling all four sides on one throw is considered indicative of very good fortune.The shagai are also used to play other games, especially a Mongolian variation of marbles, in which the goal is to capture more shagai than your opponents do.

Our first Big Naadam – 11th July 2007
We were told that its best to arrive at the stadium early as tickets are usually over sold. To get a seat to watch the opening can be difficult if you are not early. Taking that advice we arrived at the stadium an hour before, there was a small group of us sitting all together.

Photo: Lisa, baby Jack, Altun su, David, Tracey & Ben

We had to go to gate ten to sit in the section as this was stated on our tickets. Once we had our tickets punched with a whole we walked up the stairs into the stadium. I could now see why we had to enter the right section as there is a small fence on the edge of each section manned by a police officer. It didn’t take long before the stadium and our section filled up. Every spare section of the concrete levels where filled even the walkways as people sat to see the opening ceremony. People even tried to squash us up but I just said no, some rows you could see two people in the same space that should have only had one person sitting. The opening of the festival began with a parade of people dressed in traditional clothing, famous singers, horse riders, flag carriers and the winners of Miss Mongolia. It was interesting to see the ceremonious ride by medieval warriors bearing the Nine Banners/ flags of Chinggis Khaan. At first I was a little confused as I was told about the nine flags but it was pointed out that the nine hairy topped poles where what the people where calling flags. Ah now I get it. These 9 flags I was told are very old and each one is made up of hair from nine horses tales of nine white horses. The number nine is very lucky. To carry these poles are done by 9 riders on nine white horses.

Photo: Riders bringing in the nine flags

The national anthem was played and the president of Mongolia opened the festival. While all this was happening we still couldn’t get over how many more people where trying to squash into the section of seating. After the ceremony began the wrestling started in the middle of the stadium. We head out to see the archery and knuckle bone sports that where starting to be played.

Photo: Wrestlers do starting dance before wrestling

The crowds where amazing people heading to the same places and then we realised that they where hoping to see the president of Mongolia as he was heading to see these sports as well. The crowds thinned out once the president had moved on so it was easy to take a look at the other sports. Ben and Paige ended up going home as Paige had had enough of culture for the day.

Photo: Looking at some of the crowd from the stand

I stayed a little longer to try and get some photos which I hadn’t been able to get earlier due to the crowds. One thing I did notice was the amount of tourists that came to the opening. They where everywhere.
All in all experiencing our first Naadam was quite interesting but we enjoyed the Mimi Nadaam better as we could get up really close to the action and the setting was amazing. I think the opening ceremony was good by Mongolian standards but I wouldn’t say it was up to anything you would see in a western country at an event like this one.

Photo: Father & son walking together

Photo: Eldly man at festival

Below photos are from the open parade