Christian Demonology and Popular Mythology

Systematization of the Concept of Demonic and Evil in Mongolian Folk Religion

SYSTEMATIZATION OF ThE CONCEPT OF DEMONIC AND EvIL IN MONGOLIAN FOLK rELIGION 1 ÁGNES BIrTALAN being a part of an ongoing project dealing with the new interpretation of the mongolian mythology, this paper is an attempt to offer a kind of systematization of the phenomenon of evil and the demonic in mongolian folk religion. ritual and folklore texts of different mongolian peoples, travelers’ notes, and field work materials collected since the nineteenth century are used as main sources for the systematization. although no systematic written mongolian mythology exists, and the mongolian-speaking population is spread among a vast territory of asia (mongolia, russian siberia, northern China [turkestan, manchuria , inner mongolia] afghanistan) and a small group, the Kalmyks, which represents the mongols in europe (at the volga river), there is a common basis of mongolian mythology and the mongolian belief system that could be reconstructed on the basis of written and oral sources.2 because of the lack of internal written mongolian sources, the primary data on the mongolian belief system is offered by non-native (Chinese, Persian, european) travellers, missionaries, writers.3 The first internal written sources, such as The Secret History of the Mongols (The secret, 1982) and smaller testaments such as epitaphs, stone inscriptions , carvings etc., appear only in the thirteenth century. The detailed collections of myths and descriptions of the belief system are only from the eighteenth to nineteenth centuries: such data can be found in the notes of travellers (Pallas, Potanin, etc.), and in the first ethnographic field works begun in the late nineteenth century (hangalov 1958, 1959, 1960). beyond the lack of sources, a major problem with research into mongolian mythology is its syncretic character. because of the signifi- 251 the ConCePt oF DemoniC anD evil cant influence of non-mongolian religions (eastern Christianity, zoroastrianims , buddhism, islam) and philosophico-religious systems (Chinese taoism, Confucianism), it is difficult, or sometimes impossible, to distinguish original mongolian phenomena from borrowed ones. We would like here to provide a short survey of the main problems with the concept of evil and demonic in mongolian folk religion, and try to outline the main aspects of its systematization. The term mongolian is used for features that are common to mongolian speaking peoples . Data pertaining to particular mongolian populations e.g., buriad, Khalkha, Dagur etc. will be spoken of separately.4 On the origin of evil, transformation of good into evil The concept of evil in the mongolian folk belief system is closely connected with the concept of mongol world-modelization and, in a broader sense, of inner asian nomads and, in part, of siberian forest people. in the three-layered world concept, the most important from the point of view of evil and demonic phenomena is the middle (the human) world. according to supposedly earlier data, when the concept of the underworld and upperworld appeared, there was almost no difference between the middle and other world layers. a clear example of this concept is an etiological fire myth, according to which all three world layers were inhabited by human-like beings, but fire was owned only by the ones living in the upper world, the sky (the stars are interpreted as herdsmen’s campfires). The swallow was sent by mankind to steal fire for the inhabitants of the middle world; then the people of the underworld sent the moth to steal fire from the middle world (mongol ardiin, 1989, pp. 161–62). There is no mention of a good – bad or good – evil opposition in the world layers. in this type of myth, neither the underworld nor the heavens are connected with the concept of bad or evil. What is the position of evil, and how did it appear in the world and in the cosmos? There is only scant evidence within mongolian myths and mythological motives in different folklore genres as to the appearance of demonic and evil phenomena in the cosmic pattern. The cosmological myth of balagan buriads offer the most detailed description of the origin of evil. The first chapter of the buriad version 252 CHRISTIAN DEMONOLOGy AND POPULAR MyTHOLOGy of the geser epos that is well-known throughout inner asia, the abai geser Khübüün (geser, the honoured fellow), begins with the description of the upper world of the gods, followed by that of the gods’ fight, which caused the appearance of evil in the middle, human world (abai geser 1959, pp. 19–89...