The five snouts

August 18, 2008 by Karin.

(photo: a bunch of hybrid cow-yaks)

“Murl, khon, yamaa, ukher, temee”
“Murl, khon, yamaa, ukher, temee”

Zolvayar (the boy who walked my runaway horse) had me recite the five words after him over and over again. I thought he was teaching me to count one to five but what he taught me were the five snouts, the names of the five animals central to Mongolian culture.

The horse, sheep, goat, cow/yak, and camel are crucial to the Mongolian livelihood. (The Mongolian population is 2.8 million. The livestock population, 34 million.) Finding land for their animals to graze is the main factor in the nomads’  lifestyle: packing up and moving four times a year.

The Lonely Planet details the relative values of the five animals:
-a horse is worth five to seven sheep or seven to 10 goats
-A camel is worth 1.5 horses

At one point, I asked Zolvayar why the herd of sheep and goat nibbling their way toward us that afternoon didn’t venture into his family’s area. He shook his finger “no.” With our newly shared vocabulary and fingers a-pointing, he explained that our land was for horses. The sheep and goat belonged to the people a 100 meters down the hill. Cows were the animals of choice for the family across the road and as for the camel, that belonged to the nomads of the ger and caravan, camping on the top of the hill.

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