Nomadic Material Heritage: Documenting Textile and Animal Hide Crafts in Western Mongolia

PI: Kristen Pearson | Collaborators: Kundiz Byekbolat and Khaumyen Marima
Project ID: 2021SG06 | Location of Research: Western Mongolia | Host Institution: Harvard University

Mobile pastoralism has shaped material knowledge systems throughout Inner Asia, creating sophisticated craft traditions intimately connected to herding and hunting practices. This project documented the production, use, and cultural significance of textile and animal hide crafts among Kazakh pastoralist communities of Western Mongolia, focusing on practices surrounding crafts such as syrmaqs (felt carpets), tus kiiz (embroidered wall hangings), terme (woven bands), and animal skin garments. A smaller but no less important subset of the data deals with Uriankhai Mongol craft practices in the same region.

Explicit sedentarization policies and mounting environmental pressures have drastically reduced mobile pastoralism worldwide. Nomadic communities in Western Mongolia face particular vulnerability from outmigration and urbanization affecting traditional lifeways and cultural heritage. Crafting traditions designed for yurt contexts face obsolescence as families adopt permanent housing, while the social frameworks through which textile and hide objects communicate identity, reinforce connections, and express cultural values are threatened by changing mobility and subsistence patterns. This is especially the case for Kazakhs in Mongolia because of increasing pressures and incentives to emigrate to Kazakhstan, a move that also entails the abandonment of mobile herding and its associated material culture.

The project produced comprehensive audiovisual documentation of Kazakh and some Uriankhai craft practices through structured object biographies, filmed demonstrations of production techniques, and ethnographic interviews. Documentation emphasized the integration of material culture practices with mobile animal husbandry and the management of spatially distributed social networks, capturing the multivalent roles of material knowledge in pastoral nomadic society.

Methodology

This project was designed around the exigencies of mobile pastoralist life. The team was highly mobile, covering an area spanning more than 250 miles from north to south over three separate field trips. Multiple trips were necessary to collect data in both winter/spring and summer campsites, which vary considerably in their material and social compositions. The majority of the fieldwork was conducted in the summer and focuses on the material culture of the yurt and summertime craft production practices, however the project team was also able to document animal skin garments, skin garment making, felt dyeing, and metalworking during our spring fieldwork trip.

The project team used structured interviews to collect object biographies focused on household textiles: syrmaqs, tus kiiz, and terme. Object biographies were accompanied by front, back, and detail photographs of each object (of which primarily front photos are included in the repository). Photographs were taken either by mounting objects on a specially constructed backdrop attached to our project van or by laying them on a backdrop on the ground and taking the photo from the top of the project van or other structure. All photos were taken with a scale reference.

The team also conducted interviews with knowledge holders (filmed for repository) and participant observation with team members participating in craft-making practices, daily use of the objects under investigation, and special events involving the use or exchange of craft objects. They also filmed demonstrations of craft processes. In a few cases, thanks to the connections and hard work of local team members, they were able to coordinate visits and demonstrations in advance. This was particularly the case for practices such as felt making and felt dyeing, which are labor intensive but take place over a matter of hours and only a handful of times a year in a given household. The team also used trips through the countryside to document object biographies as a way to introduce the project and identify ongoing craft projects or potential demonstrators and interviewees.

Material Practices

Syrmaqs (Felt Carpets) — Syrmaqs are made for home use as well as for the tösek oryn, a set of gifts given from a bride’s family to the couple and to her husband’s important relatives. The customary gift is one syrmaq for each important relative’s household. Syrmaqs are very seldom sold but may be withheld from use and regifted as part of another tösek oryn. Felt for a syrmaq may be made in a day with the hard work of many hands, but the complete process—spinning thread and cordage, stitching, quilting—can take several months. The maker of a syrmaq is considered (in the Kazakh context and in our data set) to be the person who stitched and quilted it, but every syrmaq involves a degree of collaborative labor. Notably, the process by which most syrmaq are made results in ’twin’ carpets that each contain a part of the other. Several twin carpets are represented in the repository.

Tus Kigiz (Embroidered Wall Hangings) — Tus kigiz are made using chain stitch embroidery produced with an awl. Commercially produced thread is increasingly available, but throughout the 20th century the conventional method for making colored embroidery thread was to unravel manufactured cotton fabric and re-spin it into thread of a suitable weight for embroidery. Tus kigiz are mounted by tying attached strings on the top, corners, and sides to the lattice walls of the yurt to pull the fabric taut.

Terme (Weaving) — Warp faced plain weave with pick up patterns. The loom is horizontal with the heddle bar suspended over the warp from a tripod. There are specific names for each type of terme according to its use inside the yurt, as reflected in the repository. Patterns are referred to by the number of warp threads used to make them.

Animal Skin Garment Making — Skins are processed by drying, fermenting with whey or yogurt, curing with salts, manipulation with the hands, and repeated scraping with wooden tools. Skins used for garment making include newborn lambs and goat kids, 5-6 month old lambs before their first shearing, adult sheep, adult goats, foals that have died of natural causes, red foxes, corsac foxes, wolf, manul (Pallas’s cat), marmot, ibex, lynx, rabbit, and sable.

Metalworking — A specialist skill practiced by only a small number of men in a given community and usually passed down father to son, used specifically to make metal appliqués and fixtures for leather belts and horse equipment.

Selected Assets

The following provide an overview of the project documentation.

Acknowledgements From the Project Team

Our team would like to thank the Bayan Ölgii Aimag Museum and especially Director Aishagul Azamat and colleagues for hosting our public outreach event and connecting us with the local media.

We would like to thank all the participants, especially those who shared their knowledge with us, whether by providing object biographies, demonstrating their craft practices on film, or giving an interview.

We would also like to thank those who helped in little ways that made a big difference: carrying heavy syrmaqs to and fro, helping us mark up a Google Map with local place names, finding us a working printer in the countryside, and so many more acts of generosity.

Thank you to those who hosted us in their homes, especially Khali-Askar and family who hosted us multiple times in Bulgan and Janbolat and family who hosted us multiple times in Ölgii.

Special thanks to Aigerim, Almagul and Kharaskhan, Altangul, Arujan, Azmukhamed, Bagila, Brigad, Byambadorj, Byeibitgul, Egshiglen, Erdibek, Gaziza, Jainagul, Jargalsaikhan, Kameskhan, Karashash, Kenjel, Khuat, Kristine, Mike, Makidolda, Marat, Marua, Musa, Onay, Oraybek, Rosie, Samia, Shinarbek and Meruert, Shynai, Soltansharif and Shynai, Tatarkhan, Tileubek, and Tolev