January 01, 2010

Sagaalgan

Across Russia, New Year’s is celebrated enthusiastically, but in one region there is a second New Year celebration, one that lasts an entire month. It is the festival of Sagaalgan, celebrated by the Buryats of Eastern Siberia.

Sayana Shukhertuyeva is a prominent local artist from the village of Tsutkuley, a remote steppe community. “Regardless of where people from my village live now,” Shukhertuyeva said, “Ulan Ude, Moscow — they all come back for Sagaalgan and put on excellent concerts right there in Tsutkuley.”

Tucked in a corner of southeastern Siberia, the Aginsk Buryat District is located near the borders of China and Mongolia. More than half of its approximately 75,000 residents are Buryats. Numbering 400,000 throughout Russia, the Buryats are Mongol descendents of Genghis Khan who live in the areas between Lake Baikal and Russia’s southern borders.

From 1937 through 2009, the Aginsk area enjoyed autonomous status, reporting directly to Moscow, much like a Native American reservation answers directly to the U.S. federal government. In 2008, however, it was decided that the Aginsk Buryat Autonomous Region would, as of January 1, 2010, integrate with the surrounding Chita Oblast, a majority-Russian region. Thus, prior to January 1 this year, the Buryats were in the majority in their administrative district. After January 1, they were in the minority. As a result, only in Tuva (also spelled Tyva) is the indigenous population a majority.

This change, along with the insistent press of modern technology and world culture, gives Sagaalgan new significance: it is a way to preserve Buryat culture, tradition and community when there are fewer and fewer opportunities to do so.

Bonfires and Overnight Vigils

Sagaalgan, literally “The Holiday of the White Month,” originated as an autumn holiday among Mongol tribes. In Buddhism, the color white symbolizes purity, happiness and prosperity, and the celebration was a time when farmers counted their cattle and people added another year to their age — a mass birthday party in an era when individual birthdays went unrecognized.

In 1207, Genghis Khan ordered the holiday moved from autumn to spring and declared Sagaalgan an official holiday. When Buddhists migrated to the Baikal region in the early 1700s, they absorbed the local and shamanist traditions, resulting in a composite religion that continues to this day. The holiday became linked with Buddhism and celebrated the victory of good over evil. Eventually, Sagaalgan began to be celebrated in February, on the border of winter and spring, at the time of the Lunar New Year.*

Since the eighteenth century, the 30-day celebration has begun on the first day of the Lunar New Year, which usually falls in January or February, yet the holiday was not recognized officially until 1990. In 2010, celebrations will begin on February 14 in Mongolia, Tuva and the Buryat areas of Siberia. For many of Russia’s 500,000 Buddhists, it is the most important annual celebration, where the community unites with the lamas to welcome in the new year.

The festivities begin with a colorful ceremony held a few days prior to Sagaalgan. This festival, called Dugzhuba, is held at the local Buddhist temple. A huge bonfire is lit and surrounded by chanting lamas; the fire is said to burn away the sins of the year that is passing.

Butit Olymsansareva takes down the orders for prayers and collects the money from the long lines of faithful visitors. “You don’t have to bring anything to Dugzhuba,” she said. “When you look at the fire, think of all the bad from this past year. Then turn around and don’t look at it anymore. Those things will burn in the flames.”

“Some families take dough, which represents flesh, to the bonfire,” said Ayuna Zhalsanova, an accountant. “Each family member takes a small bit of dough. One person collects it into a lump and attends the Dugzhuba ceremony. By throwing it into the fire, it burns away all the sins from the previous year.”

On the night before Sagaalgan, many people spend the entire night at the temple, so they can get an early start.

Bamkinina Dondokov, a novice lama in training, said that the night spent in the temple is not only for those who committed major sins in the past year, but for anyone who wants to start their year off well. “Some pray inside the datsan while others spend the night making circles around the temple,” he said. “They pray from 10 p.m. until 8 in the morning, with a break from two to four.”

“When I’m making the circles around the temple, it’s like I’m talking to God,” said Olga Vankayeva, an Aginsk banker. “As I go around, I feel my sins going away and by morning, I feel free and empty.”

Sagaalgan, or New Year’s Day, is celebrated on the central square, featuring horses and traditional songs and dance. Following the New Year celebration is a 30-day period during which people invite others into their homes and present gifts of white food.

There are many holiday traditions. One of the most important is to rise early, before daylight, on the first day of Sagaalgan, to greet the goddess Baldan Lhamo. “She is a Buddhist goddess,” explained the artist Shuhertuyeva. “Her husband drank. She told her husband that if he didn’t stop, she’d become evil and eat their son. He didn’t take her seriously, so she did it.” She pointed to a Buddhist drawing of Baldan Lhamo sitting on top of her son. “That is why people get everything in order and get up early to meet her on Sagaalgan. She is really mean and people are afraid.”

Getting things in order includes paying off all debts in the week preceding the holiday, cleaning the house, washing, and buying new prayer cloths. The former tradition of preparing and dressing up horses has been transformed into cleaning and repairing cars. Old, useless things are burned in a bonfire as a way of getting rid of all the bad things and sins of the past year.

Buryats believe that how a person spends Sagaalgan represents how they will spend the coming year. “If one meets Sagaalgan in debt, it’s believed to be a bad sign, that they will spend their whole year in debt,” said Larisa Rabdanova, a loan officer. “My mother and grandparents always pay off their debts to have their own money during the year and to not be reliant on others.”

Residents visit the datsan in the days leading up to Sagaalgan, to ask for their fortunes and to order prayers for good health and good luck. Often, the lamas will suggest hanging a white flag in a high place.

Dairy products (because they are white) appear on the holiday table. “Old people within each family prepare a great deal of meat, including a sheep’s head and lots of white food,” said Serzhema Yundunova. Locals consider sheep a sacred animal and a great offering to the gods. “When people come as guests,” Yundunova continued, “it’s mandatory to give them vodka and to have a table ready to feed them. Most of all, people like to give each other buzi [steamed meat dumplings].”

The traditional Buryat folk dance, the yohor, can be seen at many Sagaalgan festivities. It is performed in the sunward direction (clockwise), with incantations and accelerating movements, as if propelling the shaman and the souls of sacrificial animals toward the heavens. The dance begins in the evening and lasts until dawn.

Crowd Control

The month of Sagaalgan is a time of peace, happiness and hope, of ridding oneself of the negative things of the past and rekindling the bonds of family, tradition and culture. These noble goals notwithstanding, the Soviet government banned Sagaalgan in the 1930s, because it was a religious holiday. Those who wished to retain their religious traditions had to practice them secretly.

By the 1950s, individuals began to identify themselves less with clans and more with the Buryat nationality generally. Then, with the Thaw, it became permissible to revive traditional rituals, as long as no connection was made to religion. Sagaalgan returned as a celebration of spring, rebirth and the abundance of milk. It featured contests in archery, wrestling and horse riding.

Lida Batotsyrenova recalls that, as a child in the 1960s, her favorite part of Sagaalgan was the candy. “My grandmother put candy on the altar all year long,” she said. “Then we ate it on Sagaalgan. It was hard but tasty. All the children waited for that.” She paused, smiling at the remembrance. “We couldn’t go to the datsan, since that was forbidden under the Soviets, but we celebrated quietly at home, eating wheat soup.” Now, as an adult with grown children of her own, Batotsyrenova rises early to meet Baldan Lhamo and eats an early morning feast, including meat and wheat soup.

In 1990 the Supreme Soviet “exonerated” Sagaalgan, among other holidays, and it again became an official holiday. Since the early 1990s, the Buryats have again made Sagaalgan into their most important annual celebration.

The public celebrations of Sagaalgan can be chaotic, less than tranquil events. Between 1990 and the completion of the new Aginsk Datsan in 2004 (now one of Russia’s largest Buddhist temples), the faithful would gather at a smaller temple, built in 1811, that did not have room for everyone. While police officers locked arms in rows outside, attempting to control the crowds, people pushed to get in. Once inside, they shuffled around the square interior path, bowing to idols, making offerings of coins and grain, praying as they circled the chanting monks. The crowd behind them would push them ahead, then squeeze them out of the warmth of the temple and back into the frigid night, making room for more visitors.

A yurt stands in the central square of Aginsk, along with a stage, where two announcers make loud proclamations. Along the adjoining street, people admire the goods stacked in car trunks and the back of trucks — animal feed, fresh cuts of beef and root vegetables, brought by rural visitors. Buyers haggle with sellers, knives whacking against the muscled beef, lamb and pork, plastic bags rustling as they open to receive the purchases. Steam rises from the dung of cows and horses, and the air reeks of bloody animal skins, hay and wool.

People of all ages crowd around the rim of the square — some dressed in thick, woolen, traditional dels, others in dark modern attire — to watch the festivities. Parades of riders on horseback representing different villages clomp across the square. Elderly Buryats in traditional dress lift up symbolic offerings of silk scarves and burning incense. Children dressed as animals dance to tinny taped music, while singers belt out traditional tunes.

Now that the datsan is complete, there is more space for people to visit the temple or to spend the night. Worshippers are no longer forced outside for lack of room. They leave the temple when they want to make a prayer circle, which involves walking clockwise around the temple grounds, in the same direction as the sun.

As they pass by the yellow, oblong prayer wheels, the faithful grasp the extended handle and push it around.

“The prayers are inside the wheel,” Rabdanova said. “Spinning them allows us to pray as though we had read them.”

The Buddhist prayer wheel is believed to embody all of the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas of the “ten directions.” Touching the prayer wheel brings purification of negative karma. Turning a wheel containing 10 million om mani padme hum prayers is considered equivalent to having recited them.

Dulmazhab Tsinguyeva, a teacher of the Buryat language and a local expert on Buryat culture, has greeted the goddess for the past four years. During the first three, the numbers of worshipers thinned out as morning approached. Last year, even the new, larger temple felt crowded.

“I was so surprised at how people moved liked a river,” she said. “Even sitting was difficult. I was sitting on a little stool and people were constantly bumping into me. There was absolutely no space. You couldn’t even breathe.”

Last year — the first year that the republic was no longer autonomous — the celebration was more localized than in prior years. The town celebration attracted fewer participants and spectators. But the datsan was buzzing.

Meanwhile, residents of Aginsk united with others from their birth villages to compete in contests of dance, song and creating the best table. The tables — their attendants dressed in traditional wool-lined silk clothing — were decorated with a selection of the finest cuts of meat, butter, milk, trays of sweets offered to the spirits, and blue and gold prayer cloths.

in 2010 sagaalgan will welcome in the year of the tiger, which represents courage. Buddhist monks, such as the astrologist Purbo Lama, can expect a steady stream of visitors to his small wooden house. Swathed in a maroon robe, he sits crosslegged upon a pile of mats. Buddhist art hangs on the wall above his shaved head and the room smells of sandalwood.

As he flips through his yellow book, written in Tibetan, to give his visitor foresight into their coming health, luck, work and relationship success, he may pause and offer them some snuff from his tin of White Elephant tobacco.

Tobacco, sandalwood, milk, meat, flames, music and dance — the sounds and sensations of one of the world’s oldest New Year celebrations. RL

GROWING RANKS: The three areas in Russia with large numbers of Buddhists are Kalmykia, Tuva and Buryatia. All told, there are about 70 Buddhist temples across Russia and an estimated 1.5 million practicing Buddhists.

* There is no universal World Lunar Calendar, but rather several different lunar calendars. The Buryat holiday of Sagaalgan coincides with the Mongolian New Year — “Tsagaan Sar,” celebrated two months after the first new moon following the winter solstice, and with the Tibetan Lunar New Year — “Losar.”

BURYATS: There are some 445,000 Buryats in Russia. Just one-tenth of them are in the Aginsk-Buryat region. Some 120,000 Buryats were estimated to live outside Russia (mainly in Mongolia).

January 01, 2010

Sagaalgan

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