Natasha Fijn

Too often I have seen the assumption that Mongolians, or historical Mongols, behave with their livestock, think of their livestock, more or less as people do in the West. Not so. There is a radical difference. As Fijn tells us, Western attitudes, whether we've forgotten or not, were determined by the Old Testament (even into the age of science). While Mongolians were and remain animists. An animal, though he be a food animal, isn't a commodity to a Mongolian, or a Mongol by extension. Nor is there a demarcation between human and animal -- there is a continuum. So too between the domestic and the wild, terms which convey Western practices and the Western philosophy. In a real sense Mongolia doesn't have domestic animals, unless you think of that as animals-attached-to-the-home. Fijn strives for a new terminology to describe the cooperation of herders and herd, the co-socialisation. Humans learn to become a part of the herd, as much as animals adjust to a life with humans. Animals are persons, with individuality and emotions: this is the essential of the animism Fijn talks of.

Here's a sample of the language she ends up with: "As young persons, both herder and herd animal become enculturated into herd society by means of interspecies communication."

Her book is of great interest, not only to readers about Mongolia but to readers about human-animal interaction around the world. The fieldwork part of the book I felt to be brief, but its conceptual importance forbids me to deduct a star.

Note. If you find the book expensive you can go watch the Mongolian documentary-drama The Story of the Weeping Camel, which she does mention.… (altro)