Separating and Containing

People and Things in Mongolia

Rebecca Empson (2007)

Fortune

What (?) - Chance or luck as an arbitrary force affecting human affairs.

All kin have access to it, passed on.

Why (?) - In this general sense, fortune is seen to increase the kin group’s life-potential as a
kind of sacred essence or source, fulfilling a common desire to increase one’s domestic herds
and have numerous children.
Fortune
Fortune can come and go, how does one keep it?

Individuals take certain actions that involve keeping back a piece ensure that the
animating life-force essential to the whole, does not leave with that part.
Buryat Nomads in Northeast Mongolia
Empson focuses on the Mongolian concept of fortune
through her fieldwork with Buryat nomadic herders in
Northeast Mongolia

“Mongolians hold that, in order for certain relations to

continue, multiply and grow, people, animals, or things
have to be separated so that a necessary aspect of them
can be contained and a liveable version of a relationship
becomes possible. This general concept is grounded in
the cosmological idea of xishig or fortune.”

‘Things’ holding significant value, and the separation

and containment of these ‘things’ create a sense of home
and kinship for separated relations.
House and Home
“throughout the year, wooden houses (baishin) as well as Mongolian
felt tents (ger), and the people who inhabit them, move over the
landscape. As the physical shell of a house reconstitutes itself
in different places, the people who inhabit a house also change
seasonally”

“The seasonal movement of people, and the places they inhabit,

creates the continual need to relocate both physical and
relational boundaries. This can give rise to the feeling that there
is no fixed place in which to situate people when trying to define kin
relations.”
Mongolian household chests
“Drawing on Gell’s (1998) idea that material objects
can act as indexes that appear to abduct agency,
things kept inside and on top of the chest come to
stand for, and act as, instruments of social agency
and relatedness.”
“kinship is constituted through the separation of
people and attention to things.”
“objects, like humans, contain another dimension of
the visible world and something of the essence of
the person is thought to adhere to their
belongings.”
Chest - significance shown objects
Idea of shared Bone ‘agnatic forefathers’ (passed on)

Displays of wealth

Patrilineal Ancestors over religious displays

Genealogies
Chest - significance hidden objects
Idea of shared blood (not passed on)

Very private objects - body parts

Through separation and transformation

Collective fortune

In cases of death
Interacting with the chest
Offerings

Recognising changes made to the chest

Visitors honouring the chest

Role of the mirrors (visitors)

Discussion
● Did you ever have a memory box or a collection of personal items that meant
a lot to you?
● Do you have any momentos from home with you now, or have you left things
at home for your family to be reminded of you while you are away?
● Do you think social media - ie. Instagram could be a modern version of these
memory chests?
● Do you have any objects that you think bring you fortune (luck)?