Buryats

• 1. The Swan's Children

  ›

  The Buryats have an origin story that begins with a swan. A mysterious beautiful being took the form of a bird by day and became a woman by night. A man married her, then asked for her wings so she could never fly away. Some time later, she begged for their return. When he relented, she flew away and was never seen again. Eleven original tribes, Buryat tradition holds, descended from that union.

  The Buryats are a Mongol ethnic group indigenous to south-eastern Siberia and northernmost Mongolia. Today most live in and around Ulan-Ude, the capital of the Republic of Buryatia in Russia. They form one of only two principal indigenous groups in Siberia; the other is the Yakuts. UNESCO's 2010 edition of the Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger classifies the Buryat language as "severely endangered." How a people with such a layered identity arrived at this precarious moment, and what of that identity endures, is a story that begins along the shores of Lake Baikal.

• 2. The Mongol North

  ›

  Jochi, the eldest son of Genghis Khan, marched north in 1207 to bring the Buryats under Mongol control. At that time, the Buryats inhabited the region along the Angara River and its tributaries. Their name appears in The Secret History of the Mongols, a text believed to date from around 1240, which lists them among the forest peoples. In 1217, a rebellion erupted among the Tumad after Genghis Khan permitted his viceroy to seize thirty Tumad maidens. The commander Dorbei the Fierce of the Dörbeds crushed it. During the Northern Yuan period in the late 14th century, the Buryats joined the Oirats in challenging imperial rule over the Eastern Mongols.

  The Buryat people formed from a mixture of Mongolic, Turkic, Tungusic, and Samoyedic elements. The earliest known inhabitants of the Lake Baikal region are thought to have been Tungusic and Samoyedic tribes. Two ancestral groups are central to the debate about origins: the Bayirku and the Kurykans, both part of the Tiele tribal confederation. N. A. Aristov, É. Chavannes, and A. N. Bernshtam supported a Turkic origin for the Bayirku. G. N. Rumyantsev was the first to argue in detail for a Mongolic origin for the Bayegu; Ts. B. Tsydendambaev, A. Ochir, and P. B. Konovalov later endorsed that view. For the Kurykans, P. Meliorsky, A. P. Okladnikov, and S. E. Malov concluded they were Turkic-speaking. V. V. Bartold, P. Pelliot, and L. Hambis proposed a Mongolic affiliation instead.

  When Russian Cossacks entered Transbaikalia in 1609, they found only a small core of Mongol-speaking tribal groups paying tribute to the Khalkha. Those groups were powerful enough to compel the Ket and Samoyedic peoples on the Kan River to pay tribute to them. The Evenks on the lower Angara were similarly under their sway. By that point, the core Buryat tribes, including the Bulagad, Khori, Ekhired, and Khongoodor, had absorbed Oirats, Khalkha, and Evenk communities into a shared Mongol identity. The Khori-Barga had earlier migrated eastward from the Barguzin valley to the lands between the Greater Khingan and the Argun River. Around 1594, most of them fled back to the Aga and Nerchinsk to avoid subjugation by the Daurs.

• 3. The Russian Shore

  ›

  Russian forces reached Lake Baikal in 1643, and the Buryats resisted. Defeat did not end the resistance; the Buryats revolted on several further occasions before those uprisings were suppressed. The territory and its people were formally annexed by treaties in 1689 and 1727. Those agreements separated the lands on both sides of Lake Baikal from Mongolia, where the Buryats had previously been subjects of the Tüsheet Khan and the Setsen Khan of Khalkha Mongolia.

  One estimate puts the Buryat population at around 77,000 in the mid-17th century, rising to 300,000 by the early 20th century. Clan tribute lists, tracking those who paid a sable-skin tax, offer a more detailed picture. They record approximately 77,000 people in 1640, rising to 157,000 in 1823, and exceeding one million by 1950.

  Russian colonisation brought two new religious traditions into Buryat life: Buddhism and Orthodox Christianity. The Buryats west of Lake Baikal, known as the Irkut Buryats, were more deeply shaped by Russian ways. They abandoned nomadism for agriculture. The eastern Transbaikal Buryats stayed closer to the Khalkha, continued to live in yurts, and became largely Buddhist. In 1741, Russia formally recognised the Tibetan branch of Buddhism as an official religion, and the first Buryat datsan was built that year. By 1914, there were 48 datsans in Buryatia. Skilled in horsemanship and mounted combat, many Buryats were enlisted into the Amur Cossacks host.

• 4. Soviet Assault

  ›

  During the Russian Civil War, most Buryats sided with the White forces of Baron Ungern-Sternberg and Ataman Semenov. They formed a sizable portion of Ungern's forces and often received more favourable treatment than other ethnic groups under his command. After the Revolution, most lamas initially remained loyal to Soviet power. That accommodation did not hold.

  In 1923, the Buryat-Mongol Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic was formed, incorporating the Baikal province, which had a substantial Russian population. Six years later, the Buryats rose against communist rule and the forced collectivisation of their herds. The Red Army crushed the rebellion with the loss of 35,000 Buryats. Refugees fled to Mongolia; only a few joined the Shambala rebellion there. In 1925, a campaign against religion and the clergy had already begun. Datsans were closed one by one. By the late 1930s, the Buddhist clergy had effectively ceased to exist, and thousands of cultural treasures were destroyed.

  Joseph Stalin's government feared Buryat nationalism. In 1937, it separated several administrative districts from the Buryat-Mongol Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. Two new units were formed: the Ust-Orda Buryat Autonomous Okrug and the Agin-Buryat Autonomous Okrug. The aim was to scatter the Buryat population. Stalin had more than 10,000 Buryats killed. The purge extended across the border into Mongolia, in an episode known as the incident of L'humbee. In the 1930s, Buryatia also became a site of Soviet studies aimed at disproving Nazi racial theories. Soviet physicians studied the "endurance and fatigue levels" of Russian, Buryat-Mongol, and Russian-Buryat-Mongol workers. They found all three groups equally capable.

  Buddhism was officially re-established in 1946, with attempts at revival having begun during the Second World War. In 1958, the Soviet government removed the word "Mongol" from the name of the republic. Around the same time, the Mongolian script was banned and replaced by the Cyrillic alphabet. The Buryat ASSR declared sovereignty in 1990 and adopted the name Republic of Buryatia in 1992. The People's Khural adopted a constitution in 1994, and the republic signed a bilateral treaty with the Russian Federation in 1995. Since Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Buryats have been reported as one of Russia's ethnic minority groups carrying a disproportionately high casualty rate. Many enlist for financial reasons.

• 5. Spirits and Sacred Numbers

  ›

  Buryat shamanism rests on a concept practitioners call the "triple division" of the physical and spiritual world. The spirit world splits into three realms: the tengeri, supreme rulers of mankind; the bōxoldoy, spirits of commoners; and the lower spirits, those of slaves. Running in parallel, each human being is held to consist of three parts: the body, called the beye; the breath and life; and the soul.

  The soul itself subdivides into three. The first soul resides within the entire skeleton; any injury to the bones is thought to harm it. Rituals involving animal sacrifice take great care not to break bones, so that the deity receiving the offering will not reject it. The second soul can leave the body, transform into other beings, and reside in the organs. The departure of the third soul marks the end of life. Western Buryats living along the Kuda River believe in the reincarnation of the third soul, a view scholars attribute to their long proximity to Buddhism.

  Three major annual sacrifices anchor the Buryat ritual year, and the number three, along with its multiples, is considered deeply sacred. Shamans prolong the life of the sick by three or nine years. There are 99 tengeri in total. Shamans fall into distinct types: great shamans belong to the Arctic regions, while little shamans belong to the taiga. White shamans invoke benevolent spirits; Black shamans call upon malevolent ones. Yellow shamanism describes practices that have absorbed Buddhist influence. Shamans are often associated with nervous disorders and, in some cases, are prone to seizures. Their primary function is healing, especially in cases of psychological illness. Shamanism is not necessarily hereditary among the Buryats, though shamans preserve lineage records and a descendant is generally preferred.

  The Buryats converted to Tibetan Buddhism in the early 18th century under the influence of Tibetan and Mongolian missionaries. The majority of Buryats today are Buddhist. A small minority have converted to Christianity; the earliest Orthodox mission in the region was established at Irkutsk in 1731. Some Buryats adopted the faith for practical gain; others were forcibly converted. In the Republic of Buryatia today, religious affiliation is divided among Russian Orthodoxy, Buddhism, and those professing no religion.

• 6. Herds, Marriages, and Medicine

  ›

  All Buryats traced their lineage to a single mythical ancestor, though the particular figure varied by geographical region. Before the Russian advance, the Buryats lived in semi-nomadic groups scattered across the steppes. Neighbours were almost invariably kin, and groups of relatives sharing the same pastureland organised themselves into clans along genealogical lines. Coalitions between clans did occur, but they were infrequent and rested on looser interpretations of kinship.

  Marriage was arranged by families, sometimes when the parties were as young as one or two years old. A central feature of the system was the kalym, an exchange combining bride-wealth and a dowry. The husband delivered an agreed number of cattle; the bride's family furnished a yurt and other essential household goods in return. If the groom lacked the necessary cattle, a period of bride service was arranged. Polygamy was permitted, but only men of considerable wealth could meet the cost of multiple wives. The ceremony included the bride stoking the fire in the groom's tent with three lumps of fat. She also sprinkled fat on the clothing of the groom's father.

  By the 1890s, a bride price involved 400-600 rubles, along with 86-107 head of livestock. Seventy years earlier, only the wealthiest Western Buryats had given 100 head of cattle. As costs grew heavier, many men entered multi-year work contracts with wealthy herd-owners in exchange for help obtaining a wife. Eventually the kalym system declined and was replaced by marriages founded on courtship and romantic attachment.

  With the adoption of Buddhism, medical schools were founded where Buryat students studied diagnostic and prescription techniques in the Tibeto-Mongolian tradition. Buryats soon contributed to the expansion of Tibeto-Mongolian medical literature. Healers were regarded as skilled in wound treatment, bone-setting, the management of head trauma, and midwifery. A balanced diet of meat, offal, plants, and herbs was prescribed as a path to health. Some practices from Buryat folk medicine have since been adopted in contemporary clinical settings.

  Buryat cuisine shares many dishes with Mongolian cooking, among them buuz and khuushuur. Dairy products form a central part of the diet, and most main courses are meat-based. Fish plays a role as well, particularly omul, which is common around Lake Baikal. On the slopes of the Sayan and Altai Mountains, some communities centre their way of life entirely on reindeer herding. The actor Yul Brynner was of Buryat descent, as was Agvan Dorjiev, the Buddhist monk who became tutor to the 13th Dalai Lama.